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INTERNATIONAL STATESMEN SERIES. 

EDITED BY LLOYD C. SANDEES. 



YISCOUNT PALMERSTOK 



/v:^^^ 



LIFE 



OF 



VISCOUNT PALMERSTON. 



LLOYD CFSANDERS. 




PHILADELPHIA: 

J. B. LIPPINCOTT COMPANY. 

1888, 



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PREFATORY NOTE. 



The chief authority for Lord Palmerston*s life is the 
biography of which the first three volumes were written 
by Lord Bailing — better known, perhaps, as Sir Henry 
Bulwer — and the fourth and fifth by Mr. Evelyn Ashley 
(1870-76). A condensed, and in many respects im- 
proved, edition of the whole was published by Mr. 
Ashley in 1879. It is a mine of information to the 
student of political history, and we may hope that 
the value of the concluding chapters may one day be 
increased by the publication of that fuller documentary 
evidence which has hitherto been apparently withheld 
from the necessity of keeping secrets of State. A small 
biography of Lord Palmerston was published by An- 
thony Trollope in 1881, but it contains little that is 
not to be found in Mr. Ashley's volumes. 

Apart from this main source of knowledge, there is a 
very large quantity of matter illustrative of Lord Pal- 
merston's private and public life. Lady Enfield tells 
us something about his youth in her Life and Letters of 
the First Earl of Minto ; and much that is of interest, 



vi PBEFATOBY NOTE. 

about his personal character especially, is to be found in 
Sir Henry Holland's Recollectio?iSf Abraham Hayward's 
Letters^ and his article in Fi'aser s Magazifie, vol. xviii., 
and the Life of Lord Shafteshury by Mr. Hodder. 
For an account of his career as a Tory statesman we have 
his own short autobiography, published as an appendix 
to the first volume of Lord Balling's Life, which has 
been proved to be inaccurate on various points by Mr. 
E. Herries, in his Memoir of the Right Hon, J. C, 
Herries'y and incidental notices in Plumer Ward^s 
Memoirs, Lord Colchester's Diarij, also in the Groker 
Papers, which continue to illustrate his official life 
down to 1855. With the formation of the Grey 
ministry commences the severe criticism of Greville, 
and with the beginning of the present reign the hardly 
less hostile comments of Sir Theodore Martin ; still 
the evidence of both of these writers cannot be neg- 
lected by anyone who wishes to form a fair judgment of 
Lord Palmerston's merits. Scattered notices of his 
foreign policy during the Grey, Melbourne, and Russell 
ministries are to be found in the third volume of Lord 
Brougham's Life and Times, Earl Russell's Reminis- 
cences and Suggestions, the Life of Lord Melbourne 
by Mr. McCullagh Torrens, and Raikes's Journal ; 
while towards the close of this period. Lord Malmes- 
bury's Memoirs of an Ex-Mi?iister and Mr. Morley's 
Life of Cohden begin to be valuable sources of fact. 
The continental view of his policy is to be found parti- 
cularly in the Memoirs of Prince Metternich and Baron 
Stockmar, the Life of Count Baldanha, and in Guizot's 



PBEFATOBY NOTE. vii 

Memoires and VHistoire de Dix Ans, besides works 
like Theodore Juste's Memoirs of Leopold /., the his- 
tories of the Revolution of 1848 by Lamartine 
and Garnier Pages, and Mr, Spencer Walpole's admir- 
able History of Englandy which includes also the 
Crimean War and the Indian Mutiny. On the crisis of 
1845 much valuable information is to be found in an 
article by A in the Historical Review ; and the Spanish 
marriage intrigue is to be traced at length in the corre- 
spondence between Louis Philippe and Guizot, pub- 
lished by Taschereau in the Revue Retrospective in 
1848. Mr. Kinglake's views on Lord Palmerston's 
conduct as a member of the Aberdeen Cabinet may be 
compared with advantage with those set forth in the 
Quarterly Review of April 1877. During Lord Pal- 
merston's first premiership and onwards, Lord Malmes- 
bury and Mr. Morley continue to be instructive critics, 
and they are reinforced by Bishop Wilberforce, and Mr. 
Walter Bagehot in his sketch of The English Constitu- 
tion. An excellent precis of English foreign policy 
from 1859 to 1865 is given by Lord Russell in the 
preface to the second part of his Selected Speeches and 
Despatches. On Lord Palmerston's later Italian policy 
abundant information may be found in Bianchi's Storia 
Documentata delta Diplomazia Europea in Italia ^ in 
Mazade*s Vie de Cavour, Cavour's Letters and 
Despatches, notably the private letters to Azeglio pub- 
lished by Bianchi under the title of La Politique du 
Comte Camille de Cavour. Not much original informa- 
tion, as far as Lord Palmerston is concerned, is to be 



viii PREFATORY NOTE. 

found in Blanchard Jerrold's Life of Napoleon III., 
but his attitude towards German politics generally, and 
the Schleswig-Holstein question in particular, are abun- 
dantly illustrated in Count Beust's Memoirs, Count 
Vitzthum's St. Petersburg and Liondon, which contains 
many personal reminiscences of Lord Palmerston, and 
Busch's Our Chancellor (Eng. trans., 1884). 

Xj* c« s* 



CONTENTS. 



CHAPTER I. 

LORD PALMEESTON AND TORYISM. 

1807-1830. 

The Temples — Lord Palmerston's father and mother — At Harrow 
Edinburgh, and Cambridge — Attempts to get into Parliament — A 
Lord of the Admiralty — Maiden "Speech — Secretary at War — The 
Nev: Whig Guide — Palmerston in Society — His habits, tastes, 
and disposition — Development of his political views — Attempt to 
eject him from Cambridge — In the Canning, Goderich, and Wel- 
lington Cabinets — He resigns office — The Portuguese speech — Its 
faults and merits — Final breach with the Tory party . . p. 1 

CHAPTER II. 

BELGIAN INDEPENDENCE. 

1830-1833. 

Palmerston and home politics — At the Foreign Office — Activity ot 
his policy — Its general features — Objections to it — The Belgian 
Revolution — Meeting of the London Conference — The Eighteen 
Articles — Possibility of a war with France — Leopold of Saxe- 
Coburg becomes King of the Belgians — Modification of the 
Eighteen Articles — The Dutch declare war and the French enter 
Belgium — Firmness of Lord Palmerston — The Twenty-four 
Articles — Anglo-French expedition — Feeling in England — Sta- 
bility of Belgium p. 32 

CHAPTER ni. 

THE QUADRUPLE ALLIANCE. 

1830-1838. 

Affairs in Greece, Italy, Germany, and Poland — Tyranny of Dom 
Miguel in Portugal — Satisfaction obtained by England and France 
— Dom Pedro's descent on Portugal — He is aided by English Vo- 
lunteers — Death of Ferdinand of Spain — Combination of the two 
Pretenders — The Quadruple Treaty — Its immediate success — • 
Coolness between England and France — Its effect on Spanish 
politics — The Spanish Legion — End of the Carlist war . p. 52 

b 



X CONTENTS. 

CHAPTER IV. 

THE QTTA.DRILATEEAL ALLIANCE. 

1831-1841. 

Lord Palmerston and the Porte — Ibrahim Pasha's advance on Con- 
stantinople — Treaty of Unkiar Skelessi — Anti-Russian policy of 
Lord Palmerston — The lirst Afghan war — Burnes's despatches — 
Collapse of the Turkish Empire — Divergence of views between 
England and France — The Quadrilateral Alliance — Lord Palmer- 
ston's difficulties — His bold course of action — His estimate of the 
situation — Louis Philippe gives way — The fall of Acre — Lord 
Palmerston's treatment of Guizot — Settlement of the Syrian 
question — Lord Palmerston's marriage . • . p. 63 

CHAPTER V. 

ABERDEEN AT THE FOREIGN OFFICE. 

1841-1846. 

Lord Palmerston and the Smaller Powers — Lord Aberdeen — The 
Chinese War — Policy of the Government — Treaty of 1842 — Dis- 
putes with the United States — The Boundary Question — The 
Greely and McLeod affairs — Right of Search — The Ashburton 
Mission — Lord Aberdeen and France — Palmerston and Home 
Affairs — The crisis of 1845 — His visit to Paris . , p. 82 

CHAPTER VI. 

THE SPANISH MARRIAGES. 

1846. 

Earlier stages of the negotiations — Louis Phillippe's first condition — 
The agreement of Eu — The Coburg candidate — Guizot's change 
of attitude — Lord Palmerston's despatch — Its results — Announce- 
ment of the marriages — Palmerston's efforts to postpone them 

p. 96 

CHAPTER VII. 

YEARS OP REVOLUTION. 

1846-1849. 

Results of the Spanish marriages — The annexation of Cracow — Civil 
war in Portugal — Lord Palmerston's policy — Termination of the 
struggle — The Swiss Sonderbund — Lord Palmerston's despatch 
— Settlement of the dispute — Constitutionalism in Italy — The 
Minto Mission — The fall of Louis Philippe — The Spanish de- 
spatch — Lord Palmerston and the Provisional Government at 
Paris — Change in his Italian policy — His attitude towards the 
Sardinian Government — Suppression of the Revolution — Palmer- 
ston and Naples — His advice to Austria — The Hungarian 
refugees . . . . • . p. 107 



CONTENTS. xi 



CHAPTEE YIII. 

PALMERSTON AND THE COURT. 

1849-1852. 

Independence of Lord Palmerston — Differences of opinion with the 
Court — The Danish succession question — The Pacifico affair — 
Breadown of negotiations — Indignation of France — Ctvis Roma- 
nus stim — Effect of the speech — The Queen's Memorandum — The 
Haynau and Kossuth incidents — The coup d'etat — Dismissal 
of Palmerston — Constitutional side of the question — The Militia 
Bill— The first Derby Ministry . . , , p. 129 

CHAPTER IX. 

THE ABERDEEN MINISTRY. 

1852-1855. 

Lord Palmerston at the Home Office — Legislation and Deputations — 
The Reform Bill — Temporary Resignation of Palmerston — Be- 
ginnings of the Eastern Question — The Menschikoff mission — 
Lord Palmerston's policy — His popularity with the nation — The 
Vienna note — The Concert of the Powers — Palmerston's descrip- 
tion of the objects at issue — Declaration of war by Turkey — The 
Sinope disaster — Beginning of the war — The Napier banquet 
and its consequences — Proposal to make Palmerston Secretary at 
War — The Crimean expedition — Fall of the Ministry , p. 146 

CHAPTEE X. 

THE CONCLUSION OP THE RUSSIAN WAR. 

1855-1856. 

Attempts to form a Ministry — Lord Palmerston accepts the task — 
His difficulties — Darkness of the prospect — Harmony of the Cabi- 
net — Lord Palmerston's tactics — The second Vienna Conference — 
The Austrian compromise — Conclusion of the war — The Congress 
of Paris — The Treaty — Lord Palmerston receives the Garter 

p. 161 

CHAPTEE XI. 

WARS AND RUMOURS OP WARS. 

1856-1839. 

Monotony of Home Affairs — Dispute with the United- States — Russian 
chicanery — The Danubian Principalities — Egypt and the Suez 
Canal — Palmerston and Persigny — The Persian War — The 
"Arrow" Affair — The Dissolution and General Election — The 
Indian Mutiny — The Conspiracy to Murder Bill — Defeat of the 
Government , , . , . , , , p. 175 



xii CONTENTS, 



CHAPTER XII. 

LORD PALMERSTON AND ITALY. 

1848-1861. 

The Willis's Rooms meeting — Defeat of Lord Derby's ministry — Lord 
Palmerston and Azeglio — The Sardinian Contingent — The Con- 
gress of Paris — The mission of Kossuth — The treaty of Villa- 
franca — Policy of the English Cabinet — The cession of Nice and 
Savoy — Lord Palmerston's efforts on behalf of Italy— His speech 
on the death of Cavour . ..... p. 189 

-CHAPTER XIII. 

HOME AFFAIRS. 

1859-1865. 

Lord Palmerston's Second Cabinet — His relations with the Radicals 
and the Opposition — The Reform Bill — Lord Palmerston and Mr. 
Gladstone — The Paper Duties Bill — His views on the National 
Defences — The Fortifications Bill — Legislation and Appointments 
— The Charges commonly brought against Lord Palmerston's 
Government — His Irish Policy p. 200 

CHAPTER Xiy. 

FRANCE AND THE UNITED STATES. 

1860-1803. 

Lord Palmerston's distrust of Napoleon — Permanent and Special 
Reasons — Speech on the Fortifications Bill and Conversation with 
Count Flahault — The Anglo-French Expedition to China — The 
American Civil War — England's declaration of neutrality — The 
J rent and Alabama affairs — The Mexican expedition . p. 217 

CHAPTER XV. 

POLAND AND SCHLESWIG-HOLSTEIN. 

1863-1865. 

The Polish Rebellion — Policy of the Cabinet — The proposed European 
Congress — The Schleswig-Holstein Question — Motives of the 
Powers — English advice to Denmark — The Cabinet determines on 
neutrality — The Conference of London — Lord Palmerston on the 
state of Europe — The Danish debate — Palmerston's last victory 
The General Election of 1865 — Lord Palmerston's last illness and 
death — Conclusion p. 229 



LIFE OF 

VISCOUNT PALMERSTON. 



CHAPTER I. 

LOED PALMERSTON AND TORYISM!. 

1807-1830. 

The Temples — ^Lord Palmerston's father and mother — At Harrow, 
Edinburgh, and Cambridge — Attempts to get into Parliament — A 
Lord of the Admiralty — Maiden Speech — Secretary at War — The 
New Whig Guide — Palmerston in Society — His ha,bits, tastes, 
and disposition — Development of his political views — Attempt to 
eject him from Cambridge — In the Canning, Goderich, and Wel- 
lington Cabinets — He resigns office — The Portuguese speech — Its 
faults and merits — Final breach with the Tory party. 

The Irish branch of the Temple family, from which 
Lord Palmerston sprang, was founded in the reign of 
Elizabeth by Sir William Temple, the grandson of 
Peter Temple, who was lord of the manors of Stowe and 
Butlers' Marston in the times of Henry VIII. Sir 
William, who was secretary to Sir Philip Sidney, and 
afterwards to Essex, and a typical example of the 
Elizabethan epoch, withdrew to Ireland after the break- 
down of the Essex rising* His son, Sir John Temple, 
was Master of the Rolls in. Ireland, wrote an ultra- 

1 



2 LIFE OF VISCOUNT PALMERSTON, 

English History of the Irish Rebellion, and at one 
time sat in the English House of Commons as burgess 
for Chichester. Of his family, the eldest son was Sir 
William Temple, the well-known diplomatist, statesman, 
ma/i of letters, and patron of Swift; the second, Sir 
John, who rose to be Attorney-General and Speaker of 
the Irish Plouse of Commons, was Lord Palmerston's 
great-great-grandfather. The title dates from Sir John's 
son Henry, who was created a peer of Ireland by the 
titles of Viscount Palmerston, of Palmerston, co. Dublin, 
and Baron Temple, both in the peerage of Ireland. 

In spite of their long connection with Ireland, the 
Temples remained for the most part English in interests, 
and almost entirely English in blood, notwithstanding 
Mr. Kinglake and other writers who talk about the 
Foreign Secretary's Celtic temperament. Lord Palmer- 
ston's father, the second Viscount, succeeded his grand- 
father in the year 1757, and sat for several years in the 
English Parliament as member for East Looe, Has- 
tings, and Winchester. By his first wife, the daughter 
of a Cheshire baronet, he had no issue ; he married 
secondly, Mary, the daughter of Mr. Benjamin Mee, 
of Bath,* and the sister of a director of the Bank of 
England ; and their eldest son Henry John was born 
at Broad] ands, Hants, his father's English seat, on the 
20th of October 1784. The second son, William, who 
was born in 1788, and died in 1856, became of some 
note as Minister to the Court of Naples ; and of the two 
daughters, the eldest, Frances, married Admiral Sir 
William Banks, and the second, Elizabeth, the Right 
Hon. Lawrence Sulivan. The story that Lord Palmer- 
ston's father and mother became acquainted through 

* Chester's Registers of Westminster Abbey, p. 517, note. 



LOUD FALMEBSTON AND TORYISM. 3 

the peer being thrown from his horse in Dublin, and 
carried into a neighbouring house where he was ten- 
derly nursed by his future wife, appears entirely base- 
less, as there is no reason for connecting the Mees 
with the Irish capital. The family belonged to the 
west country. The marriage was solemnized at Bath, 
wliere some of Lady Palmerston's relations lived 
until comparatively recent times, and Miss Mee is 
described in the papers of the day as *' of Fenchurch 
Street," which was in all probability the home of her 
brother. The anecdote appears to have been derived by 
Lord Palmerston's biographer, Lord Bailing, from a 
not particularly accurate life of the statesman by Mac- 
Gilchrist, although the latter declines to vouch for its 
accuracy, and adds, by way of detail, the evident figment 
that Mr. Mee was a respectable hatter, in middling cir- 
cumstances. Mr. Ashley is possibly better informed 
when he describes him, in the revised edition of the 
biography, as a man of good family ; but nothing 
seems to be certainly known about him. 

Of Harry Temple's parents, the father seems to have 
been a good-humoured gentleman, with literary and 
artistic tastes, and a great fondness for society. '' Lord 
Palmerston," writes Sir Gilbert Elliot, afterwards Lord 
Minto, to his wife in 1786, " has not got to his second 
childhood, but only as far as his second boyhood, for 
no school-boy is so fond of a breaking-up as he is of a 
junket and pleasuring.""^ From the same authority we 
gather that shortly before his death he was constantly 
repeating Wilkes's 7?iotf that the Peace of 1763 was 
the peace of God which passeth all understanding. 
Broadlands, a house which had for nearly two cen- 

* Life and Letters of Sir Gilbert Elliot, First Earl of Minto, edited 
by his great-niece the Countess of Minto, vol. i. p. 107. 

1 * 



4 LIFE OF VISCOUNT PALMEBSTON. 

turies belonged to the familj^ of St. Barbe was rebuilt 
bv him from designs by *' Capability " Brown, which 
were supplemented by plans furnished by Holland, the 
architect of Carlton Flouse. Tt is a favourable speci- 
men of the later Georgian period, with the inevitable 
Ionic portico, and is pleasantly situated on the east bank 
of the Test, close to Romsey, with its grand old abbey 
church. Here he made a collection of pictures of some 
importance, including the '* Infant Academy, ' which 
was bequeathed to him by Sir Joshua Reynolds. 

Of the pair, Lady Palmerston seems to have been 
decidedly the more popular, and her strong common- 
sense, even spirits, and unselfish disposition endeared 
her to a large circle of friends, particularly to the 
Mintos. They lived chiefly at their houses in Park 
Lane and at East Sheen, paying, however, several vists 
to Italy, where their eldest boy strengthened that know- 
ledge of the language which he had already acquired 
through an Italian tutor, and which stood him good 
service in after life. Believers in the doctrine of here- 
dity will notice that the dispositions of both his parents 
were reproduced by Lord Palmerston in a very remark- 
able degree. 

In due course Harry Temple went to Harrow, where 
he was a contemporary of Peel and Lord Althorp, though 
not, as is sometimes stated, of Lord Byron. There 
tradition represents him as acquitting himself with 
credit in a fight with a big boy named Salisbury ; and 
in an amusing letter written in March 1798, to a young 
friend Francis Hare, a brother of Augustus and Julius 
Hare, he describes himself as having begun Houier's 
Iliad at the " beautifulP' episode ot Hector's parting 
from Andromache, as keeping up his Italian, regarding 
drinking and swearing as ungentlemanlike, and viewing 



LOBB PALMEBSTON AND TORYISM. 5 

matrimoDV with qufilified approval, *' though he would 
be by no means precipitate in his choice." At the age 
of sixteen he repaired^ according to the educational 
fashion of the time, to Edinburgh, where for three years 
he boarded with Dugald Stewart, and attended his 
lectures at the University, the parents paying £400 a 
year for those privileges."^ ** In these three years," 
wrote Palmerston in after life, '* I laid the foundation 
for whatever useful knowledge and habits of mind I 
possess." He seems, indeed, to have been a model pupil, 
Dugald Stewart described his character in the most 
enthusiastic terms ; and Lord Minto, who was very fond 
of him, wrote to Lady Palmerston : " Harry is as charm- 
ing and perfect as he ought to be ; I do declare I never 
saw anything more delightful. On this subject I do not 
speak on my own judgment alone. I have sought oppor- 
tunities of conversing with Mr. and also with Mrs. Stewart 
on the subject, and they have made tome the report which 
you have already heard from others, that he is the only 
young man they ever knew in whom itis impossible to find 
any fault. Diligence, capacity, total freedom from vice 
of every sort, gentle and kind disposition, cheerfulness, 
pleasantness and perfect sweetness, are in the catalogue 
of properties by which we may advertise hiroi if he 
should be lost." To which Lord Minto might have 
added that he was an extremely handsome and well- 
grown lad ; for such is distinctly the impression pro- 

* Lord Bailing, in Ms Life of Palmerston, reproduces a story, ap- 
parently from MacGilchrist, to the effect that Sir William Hamilton, 
"VN'hen he edited Dugald Stewart's lectures on political economy, based his 
text on some notes taken in shorthand, and subsequently copied out 
by Henry Temple. A glance at Sir William Hamilton's preface to the 
lectures would have convinced him that the anecdote was entirely 
groundless, as the lectures are based on the notes of pupils called 
Bridges, Bonar, and Dow. 



6 LIFE OF VISCOUNT PALMEBSTOK 

duced by the interesting water-colour portrait, painted 
in 1802 by Heaphy, which has recently been presented 
to the National Portrait Gallery. Harry Temple is 
there represented as looking dreamily at the spectator. 
The features have a family likeness to those of later life, 
but the whole expression of the face is completely un- 
like that of the very wide-awake individual whom Leech 
has handed down to posterity with a sprig in one corner 
of his mouth. At the age of eighteen, Harry Temple 
seemed to be about to develop into a statesman of the 
Burleigh rather than of the Carteret type, if indeed he 
took any part in public life at all ; and the change in his 
disposition between boyhood and manhood seems to 
have been even more abrupt and complete than is 
usually the case. 

In 1803 he went to St. John's College, Cambridge, 
and proceeded in the ordinary course to his M.x-\. 
degree, without examination. Though he acquitted 
himself with credit at the College examinations, he 
made no permanent additions at Cambridge to his stock 
of knowledge. 

Before he left Edinburgh, Palmerston lost his father, 
and in 1805 his mother died. Both of these blows 
were a great shock to him, and after the former, Lord 
Minto, finding him " entirely silent," wrote to his wife 
that " Harry had too little spring for his age." He 
probably modified his opinion when, in 1806, his young 
friend, though he was only just twenty-one, and had 
not taken his degree, stood for the University of Cam- 
bridge, where a vacancy had been created by the death 
of Mr. Pitt. Palraerston's competitors were Lord 
Henry Petty, afterwards Lord Lansdowne, and his old 
schoolfellow Lord Althorp, both of whom were to be hig 
colleagues in the Grey and Melbourne ministries ; and 



LOUB PALMEBSTON AND TORYISM. 7 

the Pitt party in the University being broken up, he 
found himself, as he had expected, at the bottom of tha 
poll. William Wilberforce, in his diary, ascribes Palmer- 
ston's defeat in a great measure to the fact that he was 
supposed, though wrongly, to be an Anti- Abolitionist, 
whereas Lord Henry Petty was a staunch supporter of 
the negro cause. Anti-Abolitionist Palraerston can 
hardly have been, if his subsequent efforts for the sup- 
pression of the slave-trade are any criterion. At the 
general election of 1806 he was elected for Horsham 
with Lord FitzHarris, the son of his guardian, Lord 
Malmesbury ; but they were unseated on petition, and 
thought themselves lucky in being so, for, as he wrote 
in an autobiographical sketch of his early life, '* in a 
short time came the change, and the dissolution in May 
1807, and we rejoiced in our good fortune in not having 
paid ^5,000 for a three months' seat." He then 
stood again for Cambridge, and again without success; 
though had he not, with great straightforwardness, per- 
suaded his friends to divide their votes, according to 
the understanding with his Tory colleague, Sir Vicary 
Gibbs, instead of plumping, he would have been re- 
turned. Soon after this he came into Parliament for 
Newtown in the Isle of Wight, a borough of Sir Leonard 
Holmes. One condition was that he should never set 
foot in the place, even for the election, so jealous was 
the patron of the introduction of a new interest in the 
borough. 

Palmerston had just before been nominated a Lord 
of the Admiralty through the interest of Lord Malmes- 
bury. He was gazetted on the 3rd of April 1807, but 
it was not until the following February that he ventured 
to break the ice in the House of Commons. Though 
silent, however, he was not unobservant ; for a journal 



8 LIFE OF VISCOUNT FALMFB8T0N, 

begun in June of the previous year, contains some very 
acute and detailed observations on the great events of 
the time, notably on the hideous ruin and combustion 
of the Austrian and Prussian armies at Ulm, Austerliz, 
and Jena. Very true is his remark that Napoleon, so 
far from concealing his designs, published even the 
most violent of his projected innovations; for instance, 
the formation of the Rhenish Confederacy, some time 
before they were put in execution, whereby the world 
became by degrees reconciled to them. Less fair is his 
sneer at the conduct of the Grenville ministry on the 
question of Catholic Emancipation : '^ They insisted," he 
says, " in retaining both their places and opinions." 

It was upon continental affairs that the future Foreign 
Secretary made his maiden speech. Acting on secret 
information, which they were unable to produce, the 
Government had anticipated Napoleon by sending an 
expedition to seize the fleet of the Danes, with whom 
England was nominally at peace. It was entirely suc- 
cessful, but the Danes resisted, and Copenhngen was 
bombarded. On February 3, 1808, Mr. Ponsonby, the 
leader of the Opposition, moved for the production of 
papers. Canning, in a brilliant speech of three hours, 
demolished Ponsonby's arguments; and Palmerston, 
following somewhat on Canning's lines, pointed out 
that it would be impossible to produce the papers with- 
out breach of honour, and without shutting up future 
sources of information ; while in answer to Windham, 
who had urged that England had been guilty of a vio- 
lation of the law of nations, he made the telling 
rejoinder: "In the case before the House the law of 
nature is stronger even than the law of nations. It is 
to the law of self-preservation that England appeals foi 
the justification of her proceedings." 



LOED FALMEB8T0N AND TORYISM. 9 

"It was impossible," wrote the debutant to his sister, 
*' to talk vpry egregious nonsense in so good a cause," 
and tlie speech was a success, though not thought 
worthy of a report in the Times. Pahnerston was re- 
garded as one of the rising men on the Tory side of 
the House ; nevertheless, he was ** infinitely surprised " 
when, in October, 1809, Mr. Perceval, obliged, owing to 
tlie quarrels in the party, to form his ministry out of 
untried material, offered him successively the Cliancellor- 
ship of the Exchequer, a Lordsliip of the Treasury, and 
the Secretaryship at War, in the alternative of their 
being any of them declined by ** Orator " Milnes, the 
father of the late Lord Houghton."^ Palmerston con- 
sulted Lord Mulgrave and Plumer Ward on the point, 
and wrote to Lord Malmesbury for advice. As the seat 
in the Treasury was only offered with the understanding 
that its occupant should speedily be advanced to the 
Chancellorship, the choice practically lay between the 
latter appointment and the Secretaryship at War. With 
admirable discretion he determined to risk nothing by 
premature ambition, and accepted the War Office with- 
out a seat in the Cabinet, rather than the more exalted 
position of Chancellor of the Exchequer and Cabinet 
minister. 

Of course [he writes to Lord Malmesbury], one's vanity and ambi- 
tion would lead one to accept the brilliant offer first proposed ; but it is 
throwing for a great stake, and where much is to be gained, very much 
also is to be lost. I have always thought it unfortunate for anyone, 



* So Palmerston told his friend Plumer Ward (^Memoirs of R. P. 
Ward, ^sg'. , edited by the Hon. E. Phipps, vol. i. p. 249). In his 
autobiography Palmerston says, evidently incorrectly, " he [Perceval] 
said he had offei-ed it [the Chancellorship] to Milnes, who had declined 
it." See also Palmerston's letters to Lord Malmesbury in Bulwer'a 
Palmerston. 



10 LIFE OF VISCOUNT PALMEBSTON. 

and particularly a young man, to be put above his proper level, as he 
only rises to fall the lower. Now, I am quite without knowledge of 
finance, and never but once spoke in the House. 

The fear of a breakdown in the House of Commons 
seems, indeed, to have been his chief deterrent. Besides, 
he thought that the Government would not last long, 
and that it was therefore not advisable to be identified 
with it more closely than w^as absolutely necessary. 
*' I left him," wrote Plumer Ward, ** inclining to the 
Secretary at War, and admired his prudence, as I have 
long done the talents and exc;ellent understanding, as 
well as the many other good qualities as well as accom- 
plishments, of this very fine young man." 

To the War Office, accordingly, the very fine young 
man went, and at the War Office he remained conten- 
tedly for nearly twenty years. During this long period 
he had several chances of advancement ; the Secretary- 
ship for Ireland was offered him in 1812, and after Lord 
Liverpool became Prime Minister he was twice offered 
the Grovernor- Generalship of India, and at another time 
the Post Office and an English peerage. The simple ex- 
planation of this disinclination to move was that, though 
fond of official life and extremely reluctant to quit it, 
he had very little personal ambitition at any period of 
his career, and probably none at its commencement. 
In a letter about Lord Palmerston's character, which 
Lord Shaftesbury wrote at the request of his biographer, 
Mr. Evelyn Ashley, it is stated that as late as 1826, 
*' he passed for a handy clever man who moved his esti- 
mates very well, appeared to care but little for public 
affairs in general, went a good deal into society, and 
never attracted any other remark but one of wonder, 
■which I often heard, that he had been so long in the 
same office." He was, in short, content to do carefully 



LOBB PALMEB8T0N AND TORYISM, 11 

and thoroughly what lay before him, but made no 
attempt to get out of the groove. Mr. E. Herries in 
his Memoir of the Rir/lit Hon. J, G, Herries, accuses 
Palmerston of '* dilatoriness and laxity^' at the War 
Office. But he adduces very feeble evidence to support 
the charge, and the statement is quite the reverse of 
what may be gathered from other quarters. 

I continue to like this office very miich [he writes to Lord Malmes- 
bury in 1809]. There is a good deal to be done, but, if one is confined, 
there is some satisfaction to have some real business to do ; and if they 
leave us in long enough, I trust much may be accomplished in ar- 
ranging the interior details of the office, so as to place it on a respect- 
able footing. Its inadequacy to get through the current business that 
comes before it is really a disgrace to the country, and the arrear of 
regimental accounts unsettled is of a magnitude not to be conceived. 
We are now working at the Treasury to induce them to agree to a 
plan, proposed originally by Sir James Pulteney, and reconsidered by 
Granville Levison, by which, I think, we shall provide for the current 
business, and the arrear must be got rid of as well as we can contrive 
to do it. 

This is not the letter of a lax official, and his annual 
speeches on the Army Estimates show a great power of 
grappling with details, both during the period of the 
war and during the years after the peace^ when he had 
to resist the Whig demands for a reduction of the 
forces. But on subjects unconnected with his depart- 
ment he was for the most part silent. Brougham, in- 
deed, went so far as to inform him that he seldom 
troubled the House with his observations on any sub- 
ject ; but the statement, like so many of Brougham's, 
has to be taken with several grains of salt. Besides 
moving the Army Estimates, Palmerston is frequently 
to be found in the pages of Hansard during these 
years defending flogging in the army, the employment 
of foreign mercenaries, and so forth; doing sometimes 
a good deal of not very enviable work, for instance, 



12 LIFE OF VISCOUNT PALMEBSTON, 

when he had to defend the cashiering of the gallant Sir 
Eobert Wilson on account of his conduct at the funeral 
of Queen Caroline. He was especially happy when 
answering a pertinacious opponent, for instance, when 
he informed the habitually inaccurate Joseph Hume 
that " an ancient sage said that there were two things 
over which even the immortal gods had no power, 
namely, past events and arithmetic. The honourable 
gentleman, however, seemed to have power over both." 
But the best monument of Palmerston's powers at this 
time is an admirable paper on the historical character 
and position of the Secretary at War, which he drew up 
on the occasion of a dispute between the Commander- 
in-Chief, Sir David Dundas, and himself as to their 
respective spheres of action. Addressed to the Prince 
Eegent, who, as usual, solved the difficulty by leaving it 
alone, it set forth with great clearness and evident re- 
search, that "it had never belonged to the Commander- 
in-Chief to issue by his authority orders and regulations 
respecting the public money," but that the Secretary at 
War was the accustomed and proper channel for any 
signification of the royal pleasure on such subjects.* 

Having accompanied Lord Palmerston to the first 
stepping-stone of his official career, we may as well 
pause to consider what manner of man he was. The 
key to his character is perhaps to be found in the 
fact that while doing the Governments of Perceval and 
Liverpool genuine service in the House and at the 
War Office, he was, in conjunction with Croker and 

* There was at this time a Secretary at "War who controlled army 
expenditvire, and a Secretary /b?- War, who had the direction of mili- 
tary operations. Lord Palmerston was simply the financier of the 
forces, and had nothing to do Avith the campaigns in the Peninsula 
and elsewhere. Thus he was hardly an " organizer of victory," 
though his functions were of considci'able importance. 



LORD PALMEE8T0N AND TORYISM. 13 

Peel, amusing himself and his iriends, and probably 
annoying his foes not a little, by a series of squibs con- 
tributed to the Courier and other Ministerial papers, 
which were afterwards republished under the title of 
T/ie Neil) Whig Guide, Some of the parodies of Byron 
are almost worthy of the Anli-JacoJjin \ but they were 
probably Oroker's, not Palmerston's. However, the 
poem on ** The Choice of a Leader,'' which may be 
attributed with confidence to Palmerston, contains 
some amusing lines, for instance, the following bur- 
lesque of a famous speech of Sir James Mackintosh 
against the annexation of Heligoland : — 

But scarcely less vile than the seizure of Poland 

Has been their base conduct to poor Heligoland ; 

That innocent isle we have stolen from the Danes, 

And it groans with the weight of our trade and our chains. 

On that happy strand, not two lustres ago, 

The thistle was free with luxuriance to grow ; 

The people at liberty starved, and enjoyed 

Their natural freedom, by riches uncloy'd. 

But now all this primitive virtue is fled ; 

Rum, sugar, tobacco, are come in its stead. 

And debauch'd by our profligate commerce, we seo 

This much-injured race drinking porter and tea, 

And damning, half -fuddled (I tell it in pain). 

Their true and legitimate master — the Dane I 

Their connection with the New Whig Guide was 
subsequently the cause of a very animated passage of 
arms between Croker and Palmerston. 

Though the light and jaunty manner of the author of 
** The Choice of a Leader," was considerably against him 
among serious politicians, he could hardly fail to be 
popular in society. ** Cupid, '"' as he was called, was a 
great dandy, frequenting chiefly the company of the 
Wbigs, notably of Sheridan, at whose table he was 
present on the famous occasion when the bailiffs acted 



14 LIFE OF VISCOUNT PALMEESTON. 

as waiters. Palmerston's account of the dinner, as 
chronicled by Mr. Hayward, was that *' Sheridan, Can- 
ning, Frere, and others, including myself, had agreed to 
form a society (projected, you may remember, by Swift) 
for the improvement of the English language. We 
were to give dinners in turn ; Sheridan gave the first, 
and my attention was attracted by the frequent appeals 
of the improvised servants to * Mr. Sheridan.' ' And 
did you improve the language V * Not, certainly, at that 
dinner; for Sheridan got drunk, and a good many words 
of doubtful propriety were employed.' " It was pro- 
bably from the recollection of old acquaintance, though 
the two men did not frequent the same circles, that 
Palmerston, when Foreign Secretary, appointed the 
broken-down Beau Brummel to the British Consulate at 
Caen. He was admitted to the jealously exclusive circle 
of Almack's, where, on the introduction of the waltz 
into England, he might be seen whirling round with 
Madame de Lieven, the wife of the Russian Ambassador, 
an intimacy which cooled considerably in after life. 
Of course he was on the turf, but, though enough to 
amuse, not enough to ruin ; for he is said seldom to have 
betted, and throughout his long racing career rarely 
owned more than three or four horses at a time, and 
took care that they paid their way.* In fact, beneath 

* Lord Palmerston's connection with the turf began as far back as 
1815, when he ran a filly called Mignonette, at Winchester. He was, 
as "Nimrod" said, almost exclusively a "provincial sportsman," 
and the only i-aces of importance which he carried off were the Cesare- 
witch, with Ilione, in 1840, and the Ascot Stakes with Buckthorn, in 
] 852. Mainstone was a strong favourite for the Derby of 18G0, but 
failed completely in the race, not without some suspicions of foul play. 
Baldwin was the only horse of merit owned by Palmerston after the 
Mainstone fiasco. He was elected an honorary member of the Jockey 
Club in 184:5, and his colours were green jacket and orange cap 



LOBD PALMEBSTON AND TORYISM. 15 

the exterior of a man of pleasure lay very shrewd 
habits of business. He took a share of a slate mine in 
North Wales, and, in spite of numerous disappointments 
and a heavy outlay, the speculation proved in the end 
satisfactory. So, too, when paying visits to his Irish 
estates, he writes enthusiastically to his brother about 
the making of roads, the construction of a harbour, the 
drainage of bogs and the building of schools. It was 
probably rather in jest than in earnest that he contem- 
plates iinding some evangelical follower of Mr. Simeon 
at Cambridge, and sending him to win his ** Jerusalem 
spurs by a campaign in the parish of Ahamlish^' ; but 
he shows a real desire to improve the condition of his 
tenantry, particularly by the extirpation of the middle- 
men, or petty landlords. The property at Broadlands 
was throughout his life the subject of quite as much 
sohcitude. 

I have been busy [he wrote to his brother in 1843J reading books on 
agriculture and horticulture, and trying to acquire some l?.nowledge on 
those matters which are now become sciences. If one does not know 
something of them oneself, one can never hope to get one's estate 
or garden well managed. I have let all my farms at Broadlands 
that were out of lease, and tolerably well, in spite of the badness of 
the times. I had a shocking set of bad tenants, but have got rid 
of most of them, and brought in people with skill and capital. Our 
new gardener does pretty well, and understands the theory of his 
department ; but he is a Methodist and goes preaching on Sunday, 
and I fear he thinks too much of his sermons to be very successful 
in his garden. 

Palmerston also preserved game, and seems to have 
been fond of shooting. Riding to hounds with the 
neighbouring packs was another of his relaxations 
whenever he had leisure for a gallop, which during 
his later years seldom happened, but exercise on horse- 
back of a more limited character was one of his daily 
rules, and the personality of his old grey was almost as 



16 LIFE OF VISCOUNT PALMFBSTOJST. 

familiar to Londoners as his own. " Every other 
abstinence," was his saying, '* will not make up for 
abstinence from exercise." Always an active man, 
he was but little of a student, although his knowledge 
of the chief Latin and Englisli classics was fairly exten- 
sive. The quotations from Virgil and Horace, which 
are to be found in his speeches and letters, are often 
extremely happy, and he evidently knew Sheridan's 
plays pretty nearly by heart. But if his critical taste 
is to be judged by the pension which he bestowed on 
the poet Close, it was catholic rather than cultivated ; 
and it is significant that in the whole of his pub- 
lished letters there is only one allusion to current 
literature, and that is to Coningahy. In his later 
years he was, according to Mr. Hayward, much 
attracted by the absurd theory that the plays of 
Shakespeare were really written by Bacon. When 
the positive testimony of Ben Jonson in the verses 
prefixed to the edition of 1623 was adduced, he re- 
marked, '* Oh, these fellows always stand up for one 
another." ** The argument," says Hayward, " had 
struck Lord Palmerston by its ingenuity, and he wanted 
leisure for a searching exposure of its groundlessness. 
According to the same authority, the game of billiards 
was Palmerston's favourite amusement indoors, and 
" fortune favoured him in this as much as in the 
political game." After three or four flukes he would 
say, '* I think I had better not name my stroke." 

Palmerston's interests were wide, though possibly not 
very deep. Sir Henry Holland, his doctor, found that 
he took pleasure in hearing of the latest discoveries 
in the physical sciences, more especially astronomy, 
chemistry, and mechanics, and that he had a singular 
facility in comprehending the importance of their 



LOBD PALMEB8T0N AND TORYISM. 17 

objects and results. But science had to be made 
attractive for Palmerston ; and while Sir Henry Hol- 
land amused him, he was bored by Wheatstone. " I 
watched him," writes Sir Henry Taylor, '* as he 
listened to a somewhat prolonged exposition by Pro- 
fessor Wheatstone of certain new devices he had 
been busied with for the application of telegraphy. 
The man of science was slow, the man of the world 
seemed attentive; the man of science was copious, the 
man of the world let nothing escape hira ; the man of 
science unfolded the anticipated results — another and 
another; the man of the world listened with all his 
ears, and I was saying to myself, * His patience is 
exemplary, but will it last for ever?' when I heard 
the issue : ' God bless my soul, you don't say so ! I 
must get you to tell that to the Lord Chancellor.' 
And the man of the world took the man of science to 
another part of the room, and bounded away like a 
horse let loose in a pasture.""^ Where art was con- 
cerned Lord Palmerston was somewhat of a barbarian. 
When he paid a visit to Berlin, he was pleased with the 
frescoes of Cornelius, but chiefly because of their size; 
and when it was hoped that the Treasury would buy the 
Soulages collection. Sir Henry Cole found him quite 
dead to the beauties of Italian art. " Once or twice, 
looking at the majolica, he said to me, ' What is the 
use of such rubbish to our manufacturers ? ' " 

It is unnecessary to dwell long upon Palmerston's 
personal charocter. His was a bright, sunny nature, 
buoyant and self-reliant; the jaunty gait was an out- 
ward sign of the inward disposition. Sir Henry 
Holland, who attended both Lord Palmerston and 
Lord Aberdeen, notices, in his interesting RecoUecf.ions, 
* Sir Henry Taylor's Autohiography, vol. ii. pp. 218-219. 

2 



18 LIFE OF VISCOUNT PALMEBSTON. 

the singular contrast of their natural temperaments. 
The inhorn vivacity and optimism of the former per- 
vaded his life, both public and private ; rescuing him 
in a great degree from many of those anxieties which 
press more or less upon every step of a Minister's 
career. He had a singular power of clear and prompt 
decision ; and was spared that painful recurrence to 
foregone doubt which torments feebler minds. Lord 
Aberdeen habitually looked at objects and events 
through a more gloomy atmosphere. Palmerston, 
Sir Henry also tells us, had a wonderful power of 
mastering bodily pain, and would work almost without 
abatement under a fit of the gout which would have 
sent other men groaning to their couches. But though 
he had little consideration for his own infirmities, he 
was filled with tender solicitude for his friends when they 
were in sickness or distress. His correspondence with 
his brother are full of anxious inquiries and affectionate 
recollections ; while a letter of advice to Lord Shaftes- 
bury, who had fallen into pecuniary difficulties through 
the dishonesty of his steward, which is preserved in 
Mr. Hodder's life of that great philanthropist, proves 
Palmerston to have possessed a delicacy and refinement 
of sympathy with those to whom he was attached, for 
which the outside world would have been slow to give 
him credit. 

His hearty, jovial conversation and deportment, 
**the Ha! Ha! style," as an observer in the House 
of Commons called it, which appears, according to Mr. 
Kinglake, to have been considered not quite correct 
by the denizens of the Whig Olympus, also made him 
extremely popular with servants and peasantry. A 
pleasant anecdote has been recorded of a visit paid by 
him in 1863 to an old woman named Peggie Forbes, 



LORD PALMEBSTON AND TORYISM. 19 

who had been a servant at Dugald Stewart^s in 1801, 
and of her production of a box of tools, the property 
of * young Maister Henry,' which she had preserved from 
her affection for him. 

His faults, like his virtues, lay rather near the 
surface; but as the chief of them, flippancy and a 
certain measure of unscrupulousness, will frequently 
be exposed in the events of his public life, it is 
unnecessary to sermonize on them. And as second- 
hand descriptions of character are flat and unprofitable 
when the originals are obtainable, it will be enough to 
add, before quitting the topic, the evidence as to Lord 
Palmerston*s many virtues given by his best friend 
Lord Shaftesbury, on the occasion of his death. *' I 
lose," wrote Lord Shaftesbury, " a man who, I knew, 
esteemed and loved me far beyond every other man 
living. He showed it in every action of his heart, in 
every expression of his lips, in private and in public, 
as a man and as a minister. His society was infinitely 
agreeable to me ; and I admired, every day more, his 
patriotism, his simplicity of purpose, his indefatigable 
spirit, his unfailing good humour, his kindness of heart, 
his prompt, tender, and acjtive consideration for others 
in the midst of his heaviest toils and anxieties." He 
was a fine specimen of the English gentleman, and of 
the long list of his illustrious contemporaries had per- 
haps most in common with Lord Derby, whom he 
equalled in Parliamentary courage and excelled in 
tenacity, though he was inferior to him in oratory and 
classical culture. 

Such was Lord Palraerston, the man, throughout his 
life, and such was Lord Palmerston the statesman, down 
to the year 1827, when the illness of the Premier 
dissolved the Liverpool ministry. He stood, as Lord 

2 * 



20 LIFJE OF VISCOUNT PALME BSTON, 

Bailing points out, almost alone, belonging to none of 
the particular sections into which the House of Commons 
was divided ; indeed, throughout his career he was a 
parliamentary Ishmaelite, and his intimate friends were 
almost exclusively non-political. On most subjects, 
particularly on the question of Catholic Emancipation,* 
he was in sympathy with Canning, and afterwards ac- 
cepted with pride the title of Oanningite; but he had 
little personal connection with that statesman, and did 
not follow him out of office. His contempt for the 
Eldonite section of the party, *' the stupid old Tory 
party, who bawl out the memory and praises of Mr. 
Pitt, while they are opposing all the measures and 
principles which he held most important," was infinite. 
The Chancellor was to him — in his correspondence — an 
" old woman,^^ Liverpool a '* spooney/' Westmorehmd 
an *' ignoramus," Bathurst a " stumped-up old Tory.'^ 
Some of them repaid him in kind. About eight months 
before the dissolution of 1826, he found, that he was to 
be opposed at Cambridge, where he had been returned 
since 1811, by two of his own colleagues, Copley (after- 
wards Lord Lyndhurst), the Attorney-General, and 
Goulburn, the Chief Secretary for Ireland, both, of 
course, anti-Catholics. A most laborious canvas was 
thereby entailed, during which Palmerston had to con- 
tend with all the influence that Lord Eldon, Bathurst, 
and the Duke of York could bring to bear upon him. 
In the end he triumphed, for though Copley headed the 
poll, Palmerston beat Goulburn by 192. "This,'' he 

* "The day is fast approaching," he wrote to his brother in 1826, 
** as it seems to me, when this matter will be settled as it must be," He 
had constantly voted for Catholic Emancipation from 1812 onwards 
and iii 1813 made a clever speech on the subject, basing his support ol 
the measure on grounds, not of right, but of political expediency. 



LOBB PALMEIiSTON AND TORYISM, 21 

writes in his autobiography, "was the first decided step 
towards a breacli between me and the Tories, and they 
were the aggressors." 

Several incidents of importance, more or less inti- 
mately connected with his business at the War Office, mark 
this period of Palmerston's life. In 1815 and 1818, he 
visited France aud recorded his observations in journals, 
of which extracts have since been published. Written 
when the memories of great events were fresh in the 
minds of those with whom he came in contact, they are 
full of interest, and the Secretary at War's own remarks 
are well worth perusal. His estimate of the relative 
merits of the allied armies is striking : — 

Our men certainly do not look so smart and uniform in a body as 
the Prussians and Russians, but still they have a more soldier-like 
air ; they look more like business and fighting. The foreign troops 
look like figures cut out of card, ours like a collection of living men ; 
the former move like machines, ours without any irregularity or 
break, yet bear the appearance of individual vigour. Their men 
seem to depend entirely on each other, ours look as if they moved in- 
dependently, and yet with equal uniformity, as a mass. In short, one 
marks a character of individual energy about our people which one 
does not see in theirs. 

A still more critical event occurred to Lord Palmers- 
ton in the spring of the year in which he paid his second 
visit to France. On the 8th of April, as he was ascend- 
ing the stairs at the War Office, he was shot at by 
Lieutenant Davies, of the 62nd Regiment. Davies had 
written two letters to the Secretary at War, requesting 
an interview; but they were so evidently the work of a 
madman, that the request was refused. A slight wound 
on the back was the only result, and the man, who was 
defended on his trial at Lord Palmerston's expense, was 
consigned to Bedlam. 

When, on the retirement of Lord Liverpool in 1827, 



22 LIFE OF VISCOUNT PALMEBSTON. 

Mr. Canning was entrusted by George IV. with the 
formation of a Government, Palmerston was naturally 
one of the men whose co-operation he would be the 
first to select. A fusion of Canningites and Whigs was 
inevitable, owing to the refusal of tbe Eldonite fac- 
tion to take part in the Ministry ; and the Secretary at 
War's easy temper and moderate views clearly qualified 
him to play a prominent part in a coalition ministry. 
It was but natural that he should be offered the seat in 
the Cabinet and office of Chancellor of the Exchequer, 
which he had refused years before, and it was but 
natural that he should accept the offer. Unfortunately 
other ministerial arrangements had necessitated a con- 
test at Cambridge ; so it was decided, on the advice of 
Croker, that Palmerston, while immediately advanced 
to Cabinet rank, should remain at the War Office until 
the end of the session, when, the other contests having 
been decided, he would be returned unopposed on the 
acceptance of office. About the middle of the session, 
however, Canning sent for Palmerston, and told him, 
with considerable embarrassment, that he found that it 
was more convenient that the Chancellor of the Ex- 
chequer should also be First Lord, and that both offices 
should be united in the person of the Prime Minister, 
the result being, he said, that he was unable to carry 
out the intended arrangement. Though he suspected 
that Canning was being made the cat's-paw of the king, 
who *' personally hated him" and wanted Mr. Herries 
to take the Exchequer,* Palmerston good-humouredly 
replied that he was perfectly content to remain where he 
was ; and he even went out of his way to make the Prime 
Minister's mind easy, by pointing out that as the 

* Palmerston was mistaken as far as Herries was concerned. See 
the elaborate vindication of Herries in the memoir by his son. 



LORD PALMEB8T0N AND TORYISM, 23 

Secretary of War was at present administering the 
discipline and patronage of the army, the office of Com- 
mander-in-Chief being vacant through the death of the 
Duke of York, he might well rest satisfied with his 
position. In the same pleasant way he brushed aside 
two attempts to get rid of him, both of which may fairly 
be traced to the hostility of George IV. When offered the 
Governorship of Jamaica, he roared w^ith laughter in 
Canning's face ; and to a third proposal that he should 
become Governor-General of India, he replied that he 
had no family to provide for, and that his health would 
not stand the climate. 

The untimely death of Canning was followed by the 
ludicrous efforts of " Goody " Goderich to form and keep 
together an administration, which terminated, as the 
world knows, by the Premier bursting into tears in the 
royal closet, and the King lending him a handkerchief 
to wipe them away. Palmerston was once more offered 
the Chancellorship of the Exchequer, and once . more 
asked to release the Premier from the offer, as the King 
wished for Herries, though the latter had already declined 
the post on the ground of ill-health. Again Palmer- 
ston gave up his claims with easy good humour^ though 
Huskisson, now generally recognised as the leader of 
the Canningites, told him that he should have pressed 
them home. With the cat-and-dog existence of the 
Ministry he seems to have troubled himself very little ; 
foreseeing, in all probability, that its life would be 
brief. I 

On the resignation of Goderich, the Duke of Welling- 
ton undertook to carry on affairs, and at once opened 
negotiations with Huskisson, as the head of the Canning 
party. Though Palmerston had only a few mouths 
before, in a letter to his brother, pronounced against 



24 LIFE OF VISCOUNT PALMEESTON. 

the formation of a '* Government like Liverpool's, con- 
sisting of men differing on all great questions, and 
perpetually on the verge of a quarrel,'^ the little band 
agreed that they would accept office — not as individuals, 
but as the friends of Mr. Canning. Lord Dudley was 
to carry out the principles of the departed statesman in 
Foreign Affairs ; Huskisson and Charles Grant (Lord 
Glenelg) in Colonial and commercial matters; Lamb (Lord 
Melbourne), as Chief Secretary, would secure toleration 
for the Irish Catholics; Palraerston kept his old post. The 
natural results followed ; grave divergences of opinion 
manifested themselves on every subject of importance, 
and the Cabinet usually separated without coming to a 
decision. Abroad, the chief difficulty that pressed for 
solution was the revolution in Greece, which had been 
brought to a crisis through the destruction of the 
Turkish fleet by Admiral Codrington at the battle of 
Navarino. That independence in some shape or form 
must be granted to the Greeks by the Powers was now 
inevitable ; but while the collective voice of the Cabinet 
pronounced the battle to be "an untoward event," and 
while the Tory section were in favour of cutting down 
the territory and liberties of the new nation to the 
narrowest possible limits, from fear of its becoming a 
pawn in the hands of Russia ; the Canningites were 
disposed to let things take their course, and to restore 
to Greece the sacred places where lingered the memories 
of her immortal past. As Palmerston afterwards pointed 
out, a Greece was an absurdity which contained "neither 
Athens, nor Thebes, nor Marathon, nor Salamis, nor 
Platsea, nor Thermopylae, nor Missalonghi." When 
he proposed that an effort should be made to redeem the 
Greek women and children who had been carried into 
slavery at Alexandria, "the Duke received the proposi- 



LORD PALMEBSTON AND TORYISM. 25 

tion coldly ; Aberdeen treated the matter as a thing we 
had no right to interfere with ; Bathurst, as the exercise 
of a legitimate right on the part of the Turks; and 
Ellenhorough, as rather a laudable action." On home 
affairs the same difference of views cropped up at every 
turn. A dispute between the rival factions of the 
Cabinet on the duty to be imposed on corn, produced 
the temporary resignation of Charles Grant; and, 
finally, in May 1828, after five months' tenure of 
office, the Oanningites retired in a body on the trivial 
question of the disfranchisement of the corrupt borough 
of East Retford. In the division on the Bill, Huskis- 
son, who considered himself bound by previous pledges, 
voted against the Grovernment ; Palmerston and Lamb 
followed his example. They were in the minority ; and, 
considering the difficulties with which the Duke was 
surrounded on all sides, it is improbable that he would 
have taken any notice of their conduct. Huskisson, 
however, sent him a foolish letter of resignation, and 
Wellington, weary of perpetual broils, and disliking the 
bourgeois assurance of the chief of the Oanningites, 
determined to pin him to his word. In vain the other 
Oanningites attempted mediation: " It is no mistake," 
said the Duke ; '* it can be no mistake, and shall be no 
mistake." Thereupon they held counsel together and 
decided. Lord Dudley being sorely unwilling, that, as 
they had entered the Oabinetin a body, they must retire 
in a body. Palmerston accordingly shook the dust of 
** pig-tail Toryism," as he styles it in one of his letters, 
from his feet, and Sir Henry Hardinge reigned at the 
War Office in his stead. 

In opposition he found his opportunity. Hitherto 
the trammels of office and want of ambition had caused 
him to remain placidly among the second rank of poli- 



26 LIFE OF VISCOUNT PALMEBSTON. 

ticians ; now he was unmuzzled, and had tried his 
strength in a succession of cabinets. His correspondence 
throughout the years immediately preceding his retire- 
ment shows how great was his interest in continental 
affairs, and it was to the Greek war of liberation, and 
to the usurpation of Dom Miguel in Portugal that h^ 
turned for the main sources of his inspiration ratlier thai 
to startling series of events which began with the return 
of O'Connell for Clare, and concluded with the passing 
of the Catholic Emancipation Act; though he spoke 
on the measure, and prophesied — though, as the event 
proved, falsely — that it *' would open a career of happi- 
ness to Ireland which for centuries she had been for- 
bidden to taste." In 1822 Croker had considered him 
deficient in that flow of ideas and language which can 
run on for a couple of hours without, on the one hand, 
committing the Government, or, on the other, lowering 
by commonplaces or inanities the station of Cabinet 
minister."^ But in 1829 Greville called a speech of his 
''the event of the week/' and observed that he had at 
last " launched forth, and with astonishing success.^' In 
fact, Palmerston set the seal to his lame as an orator by 
the speech which was made on the 1st of June, and 
which dealt with the relations between England and the 
nations of Europe. The display was nominally made 
in support of a motion of Sir James Mackintosh on the 
affairs of Portugal, bat through the indulgence of the 
House, Palmerston was allowed to descant on foreign 
affairs generally. 

The burden of this elaborate indictment is to be 
found in the statement that England, lately the friend 
of liberty and civilization, was now the key-stone of 

• Letter from Croker to Peel, Croker Papers, vol. i. p. 213. 



LORD FALMEBSTON AND TORYISM. 27 

that Absolutist arch of which Miguel, the Portuguese 
usurper, and Spain, and Austria, and the Sultan Mali- 
moud were the component parts. He complained that 
Greece had been treated with scanty generosity; that 
witli regard to the conflict between Russia and Turkey, 
the Wellington ministry had not made bond fide efforts 
to bring about peace, and so to prevent the conflagration 
from spreading over Europe, by *' setting their faces 
on the one hand against territorial acquisition by Russia, 
and, on the other hand, by resisting stoutly and firmly 
the intrigues of other powers to stimulate the obstinacy 
of Turkey." Three-fourths of the speech dealt with 
the condition of affairs in Portugal, and the speaker 
undoubtedly made out a very strong case for censure. 
The Government had professed to act on the principle 
of non-interference ; in reality, they had interfered con- 
stantly, *' only on the wrong side." In a sketch of the 
relations which had prevailed of late years between 
England and Portugal, Palmerston pointed out that it 
was on English advice that Dom Pedro, the Emperor of 
Brazil, had acted when he abdicated his rights to the 
throne of Portugal in favour of his little daughter. 
Donna Maria. The conditions of that abdicaiion had 
been the marriage of the young queen, when she was of 
age, with her uncle, Dom Miguel, who swore at Vienna, 
in the presence of the British Ambassador, to maintain 
as Regent the laws of Portugal and the institutions 
granted by Dom Pedro. Having taken these vows with 
the intention of breaking them, Miguel paid a visit to 
the English court on his way to Lisbon, and so '^ the 
King of England had been made a stalking-horse under 
whose cover this royal poacher had crept on his un- 
suspecting prey." Miguel had marched to his palace 
surrounded by British troops, and so encouraged the 



28 LIFE OF VISCOUNT PALMEBSTON. 

constitutional party to make no secret of their aims and 
aspirations ; but when he had broken his oath, dissolved 
the constitutional chambers, and proclaimed himself 
king, the contingent of British troops, after playing a 
tacitly acquiescent part, had been withdrawn from Lisbon. 
During the reign of terror which followed, under which 
no less than five British subjects had been imprisoned 
without trial, the English Government had indeed re- 
monstrated, but without the slightest result ; " Buona- 
parte, in the plenitude and insolence of his power, never 
treated the humble representative of a petty German 
principality with more contemptuous disregard than 
tliat which our remonstrances had met with at the hands 
of Dom Miguel." If Dom Miguel had been treated as 
*' a spoiled and favourite child," great harshness had, 
un the other hand, been employed by the Wellington 
administration towards the Loyalist party. When 
Miguel had declared their stronghold. Oporto, to be in 
a state of blockade, the British Government had hastened 
to acknowledge the blockade. When the Loyalist re- 
fugees in England had demanded to be allowed to go to 
the assistance of Terceira in the Azores, which still held 
out for Donna Maria, permission had been refused on 
the ground that they could not be allowed to sail from a 
British port ; and when they had fitted out an expedi- 
tion in defiance of the Duke's command, they had been 
stopped by a British vessel, *' the blood of unarmed and 
defenceless men was shed in the only harbour of their 
sovereign, and under the shadow of her flag ; and the 
navy of England, heretofore accounted the protector 
and the avenger of the injured, was made the subservient 
tool of injury and oppression.'^ 

This speech is perhaps as characteristic an example 
as there exists of Palmerston's earlier oratory. On 



LORD PALMEBSTON AND TORYISM. 29 

the whole, it must be pronounced decidedly second-rate 
when compared with the great masterpieces of Britisli 
forensic art. The reader searches in vain for the con- 
centrated brilliancy of phrase which has given immor 
tality to the utterances of Chatham. The j)ur/m7'ei 
lianni are there, and on occasion passages of the most 
arrant clap-trap — for instance, when the kissing of little 
Donna Maria by George IV., on the occasion of her 
visit to England, is termed " a recognition in which the 
inborn nobleness of royal nature contrived to infuse 
into the dry forms of State ceremonial something almost 
partaking of the charm and the spirit of chivalrous pro- 
tection." Still less should the reader expect to find any 
of those profound deductions, drawn from the knowledge 
of mankind and the headsprings of philosophy, which 
are features of the style of Burke, He is favoured 
instead with the following reminiscence of Dugald 
Stewart's pupil-room : — *' There is in nature no moving 
power but mind, and all else is passive and inert; in 
human affairs this power is opinion, in political affairs 
it is public opinion ; and he who can grasp the power, 
with it will subdue the fleshly arm of physical strength, 
and compel it to work out its purpose.'' In short, the 
speech seldom rises above the commonplace, either in 
thought or in language; an elaborate metaphor resolves 
itself on examination into our old friends the great ship 
and the " puny insect '' at the helm. 

Still, with certain deductions, the speech must be 
pronounced a performance of genuine and peculiar 
merit. It is evidently, like all of the more elaborate of 
Palmerston's earlier efforts, the result of very careful 
preparation, and, taken as a whole, it contains a well- 
arranged and complete statement of the grounds of 
righteous indignation entertained by the people at large 



30 LIFE OF VISCOUNT PALMEBSTON. 

against the Wellington administration. Throughout 
his life, Lord Palmerston's main strength lay in his 
exposition of a case, whether for the prosecution or 
the defence ; and this strength is exhibited even more 
markedly in his despatches than in his set speeches. It 
is, as Greville acutely remarks, "when he takes his pen 
in his hand that his intellect seems to have full play "; 
but in his speeches, though in a less degree, is to be 
seen an instinctive skill in putting points in their 
most telling manner, in gliding over awkward admis- 
sions, and in gauging the intellect and disposition of 
his audience, whom he was in the habit of tickling with 
jokes and local allusions. Spoken entirely for the 
moment, they have not much permanent value, in them- 
selves and considered apart from their results ; and 
Palmerston's oratory, like that of all statesmen who 
aim chiefly at being " Parliamentary hands," was in 
its day over-estimated, and afterwards consigned to a 
somewhat too complete oblivion. For in spite of much 
fustian and not a little insincerity, his are the speeches 
of a gentleman ; of a brave man, who knew exactly what 
his aim was, and how it was to be accomplished ; of one 
who, except when led astray by personal prejudices, had 
really large views on political morality, and who firmly 
believed that it was England's mission to help the 
oppressed of the earth, and that she was thoroughly 
able to execute that mission. 

Though Wellington can hardly have been grateful to 
Palmerston for constituting himself censor-in-chief of 
the Tory foreign policy, he made several overtures of 
reconciliation to the ex-Secretary at War during the 
last days of his career as Premier. The first was 
through Melbourne, who, however, declined to join 
without Huskisson and Grey. The second, made after 



LOBB FALMEBSTON AND TORYISM. 31 

the death of Huskisson, was through Lord Clive ; but 
Palmerston insisted on the admission of Grey and 
Lansdowne to office as a sme quH no?i^ proving thereby 
how closely he was now linked with the Whigs. The 
third, made through Croker, was brouglit to a dramatic 
conclusion. "Well," said Croker, **I will bring the 
matter to a point. Are you resolved, or are you not, 
to vote for Parliamentary Reform ?" Palmerston said, 
"I am." "Well, then," said Croker, "there is no use 
in talking to you any more on the subject."" The Can- 
ningites were irresistibly compelled, as were the Peelites 
after them, to throw in their lot with Liberalism. 



32 LIFE OF VISCOUNT PALMEBSTON. 



CHAPTEE II. 

BELGIAN INDEPENDENCE. • 

1830-1833. 

Palmerston and home politics — At the Foreign OflBce — Activity of 
his policy — Its general features — Objections to it — The Belgian 
Eevolution — Meeting of the London Conference — The Eighteen 
Articles — Possibility of a war with France — Leopold of Saxe- 
Coburg becomes King of the Belgians — Modification of the 
Eighteen Articles — The Dutch declare war and the French enter 
Belgium — Firmness of Lord Palmerston — The Twenty-four 
Articles — Anglo-French expedition — Feeling in England — Sta- 
bihty of Belgium. 

In the Ministry of Lord Grey, Palmerston held the 
post of Foreign Secretary, for which he had been marked 
out by his exploits and knowledge, and he continued to 
hold that appointment, except during Peel^s " hundred 
days " in 1834 and 1835, and his still shorter tenure 
of office in 1839, until the downfall of the Whigs in 
1841. During this long period he occupied himself very 
little with home affairs, and maintained a serene satis- 
faction with their conduct even under Lord Althorp's 
management of the House of Commons. He spoke, 
indeed, on the Heform Bill, replying very effectively 
to those who taunted him with deserting the principles 
of Mr. Canning, that the "gigantic mind" of the 
departed statesman "was not to be pinned down by 
the Lilliputian threads of verbal quotation/' and that 



BELGIAN INDIJPENBENaE. 33 ^ 

the best key to Canning's opinions was to be found in 
his saying that " they who resist improvement because 
it is innovation, may find themselves compelled to 
accept innovation when it has ceased to be improve- 
ment.'^ He also, while strongly in favour of a large 
creation of peers in the last resource, took a creditable 
part in negotiating the interchange of views which 
caused the Waverers to desert the Tory majority in the 
House of Lords, and thereby rendered possible the 
passing of the Bill. But for the most part he was silent 
on internal topics; and as the nation knew little, and 
cared less, about Belgium and Portugal, Palmerston's 
name, though renowned on the Continent, was held in 
light regard in England. Hence it is hardly surprising 
that in 1831 he should have been beaten at Cambridge 
for advocating Parliamentary Reform, and in 1835 should 
have been turned out of his seat for South Hants. It was 
thought that Lord Melbourne would send him to the 
Paris Embassy ; but after a few weeks he found refuge 
at Tiverton, which borough remained faithful to him for 
the remainder of his life. 

At the Foreign Office he reigned supreme ; though 
his absolutism was less marked under Lord Grey than 
under Lord Melbourne, under whose loose and hap- 
hazard regime the strong-willed Foreign Secretary soon 
acquired practical independence, and brushed. aside with 
jaunty nonchalance the remonstrances addressed to him 
by the more energetic of his colleagues, particularly 
Lord Holland and Lord Clarendon. Under his auspices 
England entered upon a period of diplomatic activity 
which for its extent, duration, and success, has but few 
parallels in our history. It must be acknowledged that 
Palmerston had peculiar opportunities. During his first 
years in office the flood of revolution, having burst its 

3 



34 LIFE OF VISCOUNT PALMEKSTON, 

boundaries at Parisj was sweeping over the face of 
Europe and shaking the great monarchies to their 
foundations. Hence, with insurrection menacing them 
at home, they had but little leisure or inclination for a 
forward policy abroad ; and the English Foreign Secre- 
tary had a comparatively unobstructed course before 
him. Still there were times when his position was 
extremely critical, and it was chiefly through sheer pluck 
and address, aided perhaps by a considerable share of 
good fortune, that he rode over difficulties which would 
have overwhelmed a warier man. Greville has recorded 
the admirable dictum of Lord Granville, that contempt 
for clamour and abuse w^as one of the finest of his cha- 
racteristics, and it was one that never failed him. 

He was undoubtedly well served, particularly by 
Lord Beauvale at Vienna — less well by Lord Pon- 
sonby at the Porte — and certainly deserved the steady 
co-operation of his subordinates. His chief faults in 
dealing with people arose from an inability to see that 
they might possibly be right if they differed from him 
in opinion ; and in a want of consideration, which was 
markedly exhibited in his unpunctual habits. Hence 
he occasionally annoyed those who came in imme- 
diate contact with him either at the Foreign Office or 
in the Corps Diplomatique. But the representatives 
of England at foreign courts knew that in the Foreign 
Secretary they had a friend who would not stint his 
praise when it was due, and who would not withdraw 
his protection from them if they were visited by unjust 
suspicions or royal caprice. He once answered Mr. 
Cobden as follows : — 

The hon. gentleman says that all the difficulties which have come 
upon this country in various parts of the world have been due to my 
Tueddling policy, and to my habit of supporting those who act under 



BELGIAN INDEPENDENGE, 35 

me. Again I confess to the charge preferred against me. I do think 
that those who employ officers in distant parts of the globe are bound 
to support and defend them, as long as they believe that they have 
done their best according to their sense of duty, and have not acted in 
a manner deserving of just blame. That has been my practice as far 
as I have had to deal with such matters ; and, therefore, I am rather 
proud to have this testimony from the hon. member that our agents in 
remote parts of the world act in the confidence that they will be borne 
out and supported by the Government at home. 

On the other hand, they were sometimes apt to hector 
foreign courts, and to become more Palmerstonian than 
Palmerston himself. There was, in fact, a good deal of 
unnecessary friction connected with our relations with 
the Great Powers during this period, for which the Foreign 
Secretary was partly to blame. Though an indefatigable 
worker, to the extent of denying himself all social 
pleasures during the Session of Parliament, he seems 
to have been somewhat deficient in method. Important 
despatches remained unanswered for weeks, much to the 
annoyance of foreign statesmen; in his anxiety to prove 
himself in the right, he sometimes overstated his case 
and made reconciliation difficult. He was also in- 
discreet, and some of the private letters accompanying 
his despatches are written in a very slapdash and incon- 
siderate manner. Lord Beauvale, it is said, seldom 
paid any attention to them, but acted solely on his 
public instructions, A most characteristic instance of 
his gratuitous flippancy is preserved in the memoirs of 
Metternich. In 1834, when William IV. dismissed 
Lord Melbourne's first Ministry, the Foreign Secretary 
sent a brief notice of the change of Ministry to the 
Viennese embassy, with the following P.S. : — " Take 
this note, without loss of time, to Prince Metternich. I 
am certain that he will never have been more delighted 
in his life than when he reads it, and that I shall never 

3 * 



36 LIFE OF VISCOUNT PALMFB8T0N. 

have been so popular with him as on my departure from 
office." No wonder that the Austrian Minister was of 
opinion that the English Foreign Secretary's character 
was " hateful and inexplicable." 

But his genial presence as a rule disarmed resent- 
ment, and if he was unpopular with the continental 
courts, he was personally esteemed by the Corps Diplo- 
matique. They all bore witness to his high character 
as a man ; and of his general qualifications for the 
management of foreign affairs, a most favourable esti- 
mate is to be found even in the memoirs of Count Beust, 
who had no occasion to love him. The creator of the 
Dual Monarchy says that '* by his easy and attractive, 
yet very dignified manners, by his knowledge of foreign 
countries and languages, by his keen sympathy with the 
national currents which influence the intercourse of 
England with other Powers, Palmerston was the very 
ideal of a Foreign Minister." 

As might be expected, Lord Palmerston had no cut- 
and-dried system of policy. Of course, he had far too 
much common sense not to be throughout his life a 
firm believer in the doctrine of balance of power. As 
he remarked in the last great speech which he ever 
delivered on foreign affairs — 

We are told that the balance of power is an exploded doctrine 
belonging to ancient times. Why, it is a doctrine founded on the 
nature of man. It means that it is to the interest of the community of 
nations that no one section should acquire such a preponderance as to 
endanger the security of the rest ; and it is for the advantage of all 
that the smaller Powers should be respected in their independence, 
and not swallowed up by their more powerful nelghboui'S. 

And at the outset of his career, to maintain the balance 
he saw, indeed, the value of the entente cordiale with 
Orleaniist France, and would have liked, if possible, to 



BELGIAN INDEPENDENCE. 37 

make it the basis of an alliance including constitu- 
tionally-governed Portugal and Spain, and directed 
against the Absolutist Powers, Prussia, Russia, and 
Austria. Baron Stockmar was quite right when he 
wrote that a fundamental principle of Lord Palmerston's 
policy was never to employ England's political influ- 
ence in foreign countries for the oppression of the 
governed by the Government.* Still British interests 
were with him supreme, and the moment they clashed 
with the French course of action he threw Louis 
Philippe and his ministers overboard without the 
smallest scruple, and entered into new combinations. 
The firm was to be England and France, not France 
and 'England. Perhaps the best description of the 
Palmerstonian ideal of foreign policy is to be found 
in a speech which he made in 1848, in answer to one 
of Mr. Urquhart's attacks : — 

As long as [England] sympathises with right and justice, she will 
never find herself alone. She is sure to find some other State of 
snfficient power, influence, and weight to support and aid her in the 
course she may think fit to pursue. Therefore, I say that it is a 
narrow policy to suppose that this country or that is marked out as 
the eternal alty or the perpetual enemy of England. We have no 
eternal allies, and we have no perpetual enemies. Our interests 
are eternal and perpetual, and those interests it is our duty to follow. 
And if I might be allowed to express in one sentence the principle 
which I think ought to guide an English minister, I would adopt the 
expression of Canning, and say that with every British minister the 
interests of England ought to be the shibboleth of policy. 

In other words, while ardently sympathising with 
constitutionalism — or, as Prince Metternich called it, 
the revolutionary principle, — he allowed for the working 
of chance in human affairs, and cared little for consis- 
tency in comparison with success, for means in com- 

* Stockmar's Memoirs, vol. ii. p. 364 (English translation). 



38 LIFE OF VISCOUNT PALMFBSTON, 

parison with ends. That may not be the highest 
ideal of statesmanship, but is the only statesmanship 
which has accomplislied great things for nations. By 
it Cavour freed Italy, and Bismarck united Germany. 
All such men are necessarily Opportunists, as it is now 
the fashion to call the type ; they claim to be judged 
only by results, by poising the gains against the losses. 
It would probably be extremely difficult to make out 
from Lord Palmerston's despatches and public utterances 
any more definite system of action than an inflexible 
determination that his country should get the better of 
whatever struggle she might happen to have encoun- 
tered or provoked. He loved her ardently, and believed 
in his fellow Englishmen as firmly as his fellow 
Englishmen believed in him. To serve what he 
honestly believed to be their interests, he was at one 
time an ally of France, at another of Eussia ; he 
abetted the revolution in Italy, he discouraged it in 
Hungary. The truth would appear to be that rigid 
systems are incompatible with creative Foreign States- 
manship, which has to build with whatever materials 
it may find to hand ; it is not by systems that a working 
alliance between Russia and the Porte can be kept 
together, as Lord Palmerston kept it together in 
1840. They can be adopted by financiers, by re- 
formers of national codes, but not by diplomatists, 
who frequently have to act under conditions in which 
unknown plays the major part, and when they have to trust 
entii'ely to the impulse of the moment. Metternich is a 
good example of a Foreign Minister who set a fixed course 
of action before him ; he outlived the time when pure 
Conservatism was a benefit to Europe, and was doomed 
to see his own intellectual bankruptcy, and the almost 
complete overtlrow of his country under the stress of 



BELGIAN INDUPENDENGK 39 

reaction. Against him stood Palmerston — except during 
the truce between them created by the Syrian question 
— ^in the double capacity of the representative of the 
greatest of the constitutional Powers and of a man per- 
sonally disposed to anticipate revolution by reform. 
The contest between the two men was one of principle, 
and never extended to the battle-field ; but it was none 
the less acute. It terminated, as far as Metternich was 
concerned, with the revolution of 1848 ; but he left to 
his successors in the direction of Austrian and German 
politics a legacy of somewhat unreasonable Anglophobia, 
which pursued Lord Palmerston to the end of his life, 
and was doubtless in part the cause of his failure to 
bring the Schleswig-Holstein question to a successful 
issue. But on the whole Lord Palmerston may be 
considered to have triumphed completely over his 
great rival for the leadership of European politics ; 
though less perhaps in the creation of independent 
Belgium, than in the constitutionalizing of Spain and 
Portugal, for to the first the Austriau Chancellor en- 
tertained no deep-rooted objection. 

Lord Palmerston's foreign policy found its best 
expression, from the humanitarian point of view, in his 
efforts to suppress the slave trade ; and from the prac- 
tical, in the numerous commercial treaties concluded 
while he was Foreign Secretary. The chief objections 
to it were, as the statesmen of the Oobden school 
pointed out with vigorous logic during the later part 
of his career, that by continually keeping England on 
the brink of war, it necessitated huge armaments 
and a heavy burden of taxation. To which Pal- 
merston would have replied that war was more likely 
to be avoided by a bold than by a timid policy, and that 
large armaments were a necessity in any case, considering 



40 LIFE OF VISCOUNT PALMEBSTON. 

that British interests ^vere world-wide, and the huge 
Empire extremely vulnerable. On the latter point he 
once pointed out, in a remarkable letter to Mr. Glad- 
stone, that — 

We have on the other side of the Channel a people who, say what 
they may, hate us as a nation from the bottom of their hearts, and 
would make any sacrifice to inflict a deep humiliation on England. 
It is natural that this should he. They are eminently vain, and their 
passion is glory in war. They cannot forget or forgive Aboukir, 
Trafalgar, the Peninsula, Waterloo, and St. Helena. . . Give 
[the rulers of France] a cause of quarrel, which any foreign Power 
may at anytime invent or create, if so minded: give him the command 
of the Channel, which personal or accidental naval superiority might 
afford him, and then calculate if you can — for it would pass my 
reckoning power to do so^-the disastrous consequences to the British 
nation which a landing of an army of from one to two hundred 
thousand men would bring with it. Surely even a large j'early 
expenditure for army and navy is an economical insurance against 
such a catastrophe. 

The passage was written under somewhat abnormal 
circumstances, when France was " spoiling for a fight," 
as the Irish say, and it seemed to be quite uncertain 
with which of her neighbours she proposed to pick a 
quarrel. But it is capable of general application as 
well ; and, tiuitaiis mutandis, embodies Lord Palmer- 
ston's views of the true attitude to be adopted towards 
Russia, the other Power with whom England is inevit- 
ably at variance in nine European crises out of ten, 
and whose inevitable advance towards the frontier of 
India he foretold as far back as 1847. 

Even those who object to his policy on the ground of 
its expensiveness, must be willing to acknowledge its 
honesty and success. He, quite as much as Prince Bis- 
marck, was a believer in the principle of do tit den, and 
he had little confidence in sentiment as a permanent bond 
of union between nation and nation. Les peuples n*o?it 



BELGIAN INBEPENBENGE, 41 

l^as des cousins, was one of his favourite maxims ; he held 
that hope and fear were the mainsprings of diplomatic 
action, not a Utopian belief in the perfectibility of the 
species, that arguments of the prophet and the divine 
were out of place in despatches addressed to Metternich 
or Nesselrode. As to its success, it is enough to re- 
mark, without discussing "might-have-beens," that as 
long as Lord Palmerston directed foreign affairs, either 
as Foreign Secretary or Prime Minister, England 
avoided war, and played a prominent and creditable 
part in nearly every crisis. There was something in 
that, whatever the Oobdenites might say. 

In his latter days Lord Palmerston was accustomed 
to say that of all his achievements, the one of which he 
was most proud, was his treaty with Brazil for the sup- 
pression of the slave-trade. But the suppression of 
Brazilian slavery must have come sooner or later, and it 
is to independent Belgium that we must look for the 
most conspicuous and artistic monument of his diplo- 
matic genius. The revolt of Belgium from Holland, 
which had taken place during the last days of the 
Wellington ministry, was obviously completely destruc- 
tive of one of the most carefully planned of the arrange- 
ments of 1815. It was the object of the statesnaen 
assembled at Vienna, as it had been the object of Mr. 
Pitt before them, to create a strong monarchy on the 
northern frontier of France, as a barrier to French 
aggression. Belgium and Holland were therefore 
united under the sovereignty of the House of Orange, 
and an impregnable line of fortresses was constructed 
along the southern frontier of the kingdom of the 
Netherlands, at the cost of the Allies, and under the 
superintendence of Wellington. Unfortunately the 
union proved one of hands, not of hearts. The Belgians 



42 LIFE OF VISCOUNT PALMFESTON. 

found themselves deprived of their just share of ofiQce 
and representation, and saddled with more than their 
fair share of debt ; they were compelled to use the Dutch 
language in their courts of law, and were forced to 
submit to the systematic appointment of Protestant 
teachers in their seminaries. Always full of sympathy 
for French ideas, they naturally found in the July 
Eevolution of 1830, an example that must be followed, 
immediately and at all hazards. On the 28th of August, 
Brussels, inspired by the patriotic strains of Massaniello, 
rose in revolt, and the example of the capital was 
speedily followed by the provinces. 

Fortunately for Belgium, the autocratic Powers were 
too busily employed in making head against the Revolu- 
tion at home to be able to send troops to the assistance 
of the Dutch Government. The creators of the revolu- 
tion seem, indeed, to have chosen the moment for action 
with extraordinary skill, for so weak were the northern 
Powers, that we find Lord Palmerston writing to Lord 
Granville that they would have great difficulty in 
bringing into the field a force at all adequate to make 
an attack on France ; a statement which is of some im- 
portance in forming an estimate of the wisdom of the 
policy of balancing Western constitutionalism against 
Northern autocracy. Lord Aberdeen, though he dis- 
approved of the revolution, bore too much good sense 
to give an affirmative answer to the appeal of the King 
of the Netherlands. Instead, he hurried on the meeting 
of the Conference, which had been summoned to London 
at the instance of the King, and the representatives of 
the Powers promptly concluded an armistice between the 
belligerents. It was at this stage of the negotiations 
that Palmerston replaced Aberdeen at the Foreign Office, 
and began his great career as Foreign Minister of 



BELGIAN INBEPENBENGE. 43 

England. The independence of Belgium^ which hung 
doubtfully in the balance while Lord Aberdeen was at 
the Foreign Office, was now, in some form or other, 
assured. 

Though breathing-time had been gained, the situation 
was evidently full of difficulty. There was a strong war 
party in the French Chambers, anxious to send armed 
assistance to their Belgian neighbours, and looking for 
their reward in the destruction of the barrier fortresses, 
and a considerable rectification of the French frontier, if 
not in the absolute annexation of Belgium to France. 
There was also a possibility that Louis Philippe, wishing 
to secure popularity for his new dynasty, would play into 
the hands of that party, even at the risk of war with 
England. Fortunately, however, the King of the French 
had too much common-sense, and Talleyrand, his 
minister at London, held so firmly to the view that a 
good understanding with England was a vital necessity 
for the Orleanist monarchy, that he was ready to dis- 
obey his instructions rather than cause a serious rupture. 
WitI) moderation in the ascendant on the French side, 
Palmerston had little difficulty in gaining the consent 
of the Conference to a principle of separation under 
which the Powers declared that Belgium should form a 
perpetually neutral state, and guaranteed its integrity 
and inviolability. This important declaration was ac- 
companied by another, that the Powers in these arrange- 
ments would seek no augmentation of territory. It was 
not without considerable difficulty that the English 
minister succeeded in obtaining Talleyrand's consent to 
the latter stipulation. The Duchy of Luxemburg had 
taken part in the rebellion against the King of Holland, 
but, though he was its ruler, it belonged not to Holland 
but to the German Confederation. Palmerston's idea 



44 LIFE OF VISCOUNT FALMEBSTON, 

was that if the King of Holland would cede Luxemburg 
to Belgium, the Belgians might consent to place his 
eldest son, the Prince of Orange, on their throne. Talley- 
rand's solution of the difficulty was that Luxemburg 
should be handed over to France, as the French frontier 
was very weak on that side ; and if this were impossible, 
that France should at least receive the towns of Marien- 
burg and Philippeville. Palraerston thereupon gave him 
a lecture on the impossibility of a continuation of the 
entente cordiale if France intended to aim at territorial 
acquisitions; and by the Eighteen Articles, signed by 
the members of the Conference on January 27th, 1831, 
it was decided that Luxemburg should remain part of 
the German Confederation. These articles, which 
assigned to Holland the limits which she possessed 
in 1790, were accepted by the Dutch Plenipotentiaries. 
The Belgians, however, who had taken the bit between 
their teeth, declined to accept the Eighteen Articles, 
their chief grievance being that they were assigned an 
excessive share of the divided debt of the kingdom of 
the Netherlands. They proceeded further to assert 
their independence by electing a sovereign, and, with the 
obvious design of playing off France against the other 
Powers, they chose for their King the Due de Nemours, 
the second son of Louis Philippe. The French King's 
well-known instincts as jieve de famille were at once 
brought into full play, and a grave crisis began which 
extended over several weeks. Nothing could have been 
firmer than Palmerston^s conduct. He informed Talley- 
rand that the acceptance of the Belgian crown by 
Nemours, would be looked upon as a union between 
Belgium and France, and would be made at the risk of 
war with England ; he persuaded the Conference to sign 
a self-denying ordinance by which they pledged them- 



BELGIAN INDEPENDENGK 45 

selves to reject a prince who should he chosen from the 
reigning families of the five Powers. Louis Philippe 
gave way for the moment, and informed the Belgian 
deputation that his regard for the peace of Europe 
rendered it imperative for him to decline the proffered 
honour; hut the Parisians were wildly excited, the 
French G-overnment began military preparations on a 
large scale, and Count Sebastiani, the Foreign Secretary, 
let fall a remark about France being the dupe of England, 
which nearly set Europe ablaze. 

It was unlikely that Lord Palmerston would put up 
with language of the sort. '* Pray take care,^' he wrote to 
Lord Granville, our Minister at Paris, " in all your con- 
versation with Sebastiani, to make him understand that 
our desire for peace will never lead us to submit to an 
affront either in language or in act"; and in a private 
letter to Lord Granville, sent through the French Foreign 
Office,* where it was opened and read as a matter of 
course, Sebastiani was informed that '* we are not used 
to be accused of making people dupes." 

The resolute language had excellent effect, and the 
crisis passed off. Sebastiani lowered his tone, Talleyrand 
was unceasing in his pacific efforts, and a political 
change in Frnnce placed at the head of the French 
Ministry a resolute friend of peace in the person of 
Casimir Perier ; Sebastiani, however, retaining the post 
of Foreign Minister. Palmerston was delighted with 
the altered aspect of affairs, and Perier on his side, 
after throwing out a hint that France would like the 
Duchy of Bouillon, directed Talleyrand to accept 
without qualifications the " bases of separation," as the 
Eighteen Articles were called. Further, the Belgians 

* According to Lord Bailing, this is a not uncommon method of 
giving a very strong hint. 



46 LIFE OF VISCOUNT FALMEBSTON. 

were informed that if they refused to accept the bases 
of separation by the 1st of June the five Powers would 
at once break off diplomatic relations. 

The Belgians failed to accept the bases of separation, 
and diplomatic relations were suspended. People 
thought they were mad, but Palmerston observed a good 
deal of method and calculation in their madness. The 
probable explanation of their proceedings is that, con- 
fident of the support of either England or France, or 
possibly of both, they saw that everything was to be 
gained by playing a bold game. The next step taken 
by them was at any rate greatly to their credit; of 
the candidates for the crown that were still available 
they chose the most suitable, Leopold of Saxe-Coburg, 
the widowed husband of the Princess Charlotte of 
England, and the Prince who had with remarkable 
prudence rejected the unstable throne of Greece. He 
was elected with the understanding that he should 
marry the daughter of Louis Philippe. The wisdom 
of their choice of a candidate likely to propitiate both 
England and France became further evident when 
Leopold declined to accept the crown until the Belgians 
had accepted the bases of separation, and thereby forced 
the Powers to reconsider their ultimatum. Concessions 
were made; Luxemburg, instead of being definitely as- 
signed to Holland, was to be made the subject of ulterior 
negotiation; so also was the town of Maestricht; the 
debt was to be divided into fairer proportions. These 
resolutions were embodied in a fresh set of eighteen 
articles, accepted by the Belgian Parliament, and Leo- 
pold became King of the Belgians. 

The commencement of his reign was not propitious. 
As Belgium had refused to accept the bases of separa- 
tion, so did the Dutch reject their modification. The 



BELGIAN INBEFENDENCE. 47 

King of Holland resolved to follow up this determination 
by a bold stroke ; he declared the armistice to be at an 
end, and despatched an army of 50,000 men to the 
frontier. Thereupon began a fresh crisis of considerable 
acuteness. Without consulting the Allies, Louis Philippe 
sent a force to the assistance of the Belgians under 
Marshal Gerard, and it was only by the exercise of the 
utmost promptitude that Sir Robert Adair, the English 
ambassador, prevented the outbreak of hostilities which 
could hardly have failed to resolve themselves eventu- 
ally into a European war. 

Even though the situation was saved for the moment, 
there appeared for the second time during the negotia- 
tions an imminent possibility of war between England 
and France. Marshal Gerard was in possession, and 
the French Government declared that he could not 
possibly be withdrawn without a quid pro quo. While 
Perier was plausibly explaining to Lord Granville that 
the departure of the French troops would be followed 
by the overthrow of his ministry, unless some salve was 
offered to the vanity of his countrymen ; Talleyrand was 
hinting at the partition of Belgium between France, 
Prussia, and Holland; while Sebastian!, braggart to the 
last, though consenting to withdraw 20,000 men from 
Belgium, stated that a decision must be taken on the 
destiny of the frontier fortresses before the French 
army would entirely evacuate the country. Lord Palmer- 
ston's reply was decided in the extreme. He pointed out 
to Lord Granville that '^ the only value to England of 
Perier and his Cabinet was that they were believed to be 
lovers of peace, and observers of treaties ; but if they 
were to be merely puppets, put up to play the part cast 
for them by the violent party, what was it to England 
whether they stood or fell ? " To Sebastiani it was 



48 LIFE OF VISCOUNT PALMERSTON, 

explained that the French pretensions with regard to the 
fortresses were utterly inadmissible. They had been 
built by the Allies at a great cost and as a barrier 
against French aggression, and it was therefore im- 
possible to make France a party to the treaty for their 
demolition. To dismantle them while the French had 
them in possession would be a disgrace to the five 
Powers. At the same time Palmerston promised, that 
if the French would withdraw, the Powers would lose 
no time in beginning the discussion with Leopold for 
the purpose of selecting the fortresses to be dismantled. 
The weakest point in Palmerston's position was that 
Leopold was anxious that a portion of the French troops 
should remain for his protection, but by the conclusion 
of a six weeks' armistice between Holland and Belgium, 
the Foreign Secretary was able to obviate any objections 
that might be raised either by the French or Belgian 
Governments against the departure of Gerard. His 
mingled conciliation and firmness gained the day, and on 
the 15th of September, Talleyrand told the Plenipoten- 
tiaries that all the French troops would be immediately 
withdrawn from Belgium. 

Though the obstinacy of the Dutch King delayed the 
final establishment of Belgian independence, there was 
no longer any danger of a rupture between England 
and France, and the rapprochement between the two 
Powers greatly facilitated the last stages of the negotia- 
tions. A fresh set of conditions, known as the Twenty- 
four Articles, were agreed upon by the Conference on 
the 14th of October, and, on the 15th of the following 
month, embodied in a formal treaty which the Powers 
were to enforce upon Holland and Belgium, if either of 
them refused to accept it. As might be expected, the 
conduct of the Dutch King had not strengthened his 



BELGIAN INBEPENJDENOK 49 

cause. He was now required to surrender part of 
Luxemburg in exchange for a portion of Limburg, to 
give the Belgians a free passage through Maestricht and 
the free navigation of the Scheldt. It was in vain that 
during the following year Holland attempted to detach 
first Prussia and then Russia from the European concert ; 
Prussia was afraid to act alone, and Russia was bound 
to Britain by pecuniary ties, which Palmerston seized 
the first opportunity to renew. At the same time he 
made one more effort to smooth away difficulties, and 
his Theme, as the document was called in which he 
attempted a final compromise between the rival Govern- 
ments, is one of the finest examples that the State 
Papers can furnish of his power of manipulating the 
minutiae of diplomacy. Its ungracious rejection by 
the Dutch Plenipotentiaries placed them completely in 
the wrong, and enabled the Western Powers to resort 
to immediate coercion. In September, 1832, Talley- 
rand and Palmerston had exhausted their stock of 
patience, and, unsupported by the representatives of the 
other Powers, who withdrew from the Conference, they 
decided that the time for action had come. The King 
of Holland was informed that if the Dutch would not 
retire from the citadel of Antwerp before the 12th of 
November, force would be employed. With commend- 
able punctuality a French army corps under Gerard 
marched on Antwerp, while an English fleet blocked the 
Scheldt. After a bombardment, the citadel surrendered 
on the 23rd of December; and though the King of 
Holland declined to recognise the kingdom of Belgium 
until seven years later, its existence was none the less 
an assured fact. 

The verdict of posterity has recognised that the crea- 
tion of a free Belgium was almost exclusivelv the work 

4 



50 LIFE OF VISCOUNT FALMFESTON, 

of Palmerston, and has reckoned it as perhaps the 
greatest of his many great achievements. To the people 
of his generation it did not appear in quite so satisfac- 
tory a light. It seemed to them that the employment 
of force robbed the arrangement of mnch of its credit. 
The spectacle of two powerful nations combining to coerce 
a weak people is seldom calculated to provoke enthu- 
siasm, and it was remembered that if the Dutch had 
been left to themselves they would have beaten the Bel- 
gians out of the field. Lord Palmerston, in a speech 
made on Feb. 18th, 1833, justly complained that 

He had been ridiculed on all hands, and held up to the derision of 
that House and that of the country ; but the country was too en- 
lightened to ridiciilc him for endeavouring to preserve peace by 
protocols, as it had been called. The hon. member for Essex had 
talked contemptnously of his hammering out protocols ; he found 
fault with the IMinisters' adherence to pacific counsels ; and he was 
no less displeased, it appeared, with the departure from them in the 
ease of the attack on Antwerp. Whether they attempted to pre- 
serve the peace of Europe, so mtich endangered by the quarrel of 
the Dutch and Belgians— Avhethcr they endeavoured to preserve peace 
by persuasion or by force, the course which they thought it advisable 
to pursue was equally distasteful to these hon. gentlemen. He 
trusted, however, that the House and the people would better appre- 
ciate their endeavours to prevent a war in Europe, and the conflict of 
political princiioles which would inevitably have arisen if such a war 
had taken place. 



Moreover, of the coercing Powers, France had 
taken the more brilliant share in the combined ope- 
rations; and the memories of Waterloo were too recent 
for the more hot-headed of Englishmen, among whom 
might be reckoned King William, to be able to con- 
template w^ith equanimity the spectacle of England 
putting up with the second place when France had the 
first; indeed, they would barely contemplate the idea 



BELGIAN INDEPENDENCE. 51 

of an Anglo-French alliance at all.* These vapour- 
ings found, however, but little voice in the House of 
Commons, where an attack on Palmerston's treatment 
of the Dutch, which was made on the motion of Sir 
Robert Peel, collapsed completely. 

The wise government of King Leopold completed the 
stability of the edifice which Palmerston had set up, 
" his experimental little Belgian monarchy," as it wag 
called at the time ; and when the year 1848 witnessed 
a second opening of the flood-gates of revolution, Bel- 
gium was one of the very few of the monarchies of 
Europe which was not temporarily submerged. Under 
the prudent rule of Leopold's son, the arrangement has 
held good down to our day, but its existence appears to 
be imperilled now that the nation chiefly interested in 
its continuance is inferior in military strength to those 
which might be disposed to its violation. This much 
must be said of Lord Palmerston's creation, even by 
the most hostile critic : that it was in accordance with 
justice, that it was in accordance with expediency, and 
that it has stood thus far the test of time. 

* This feeling found expression in " H. B.'s " cartoons, in one of 
which Lord Palmerston is depicted as a blind man led by the French 
poodle Talleyrand to the brink of a precipice. 



4 * 



52 LIFE OF VISCOUNT PALMEBSTON. 



CHAPTER III. 

THE QUADRUPLE ALLIANCE, 

1830-1838. 

Affairs in Greece, Italy, Germany, and Poland — Tyranny of Dom 
Miguel in Portugal — Satisfaction obtained by England and France 
— Dom Pedro's descent on Portugal — He is aided by English Vo- 
lunteers — Death of Ferdinand of Spain — Combination of the two 
Pretenders — The Quadruple Treaty — Its immediate success — 
Coolness between England and France — Its effect on Spanish 
politics — The Spanish Legion — End of the Carlist war. 

During the first years of his reign at the Foreign 
Office the affairs of Belgium appear to have ahsorbed 
Palmerston's attention almost entirely. He played only 
a subordinate part in the negotiations which seemed for 
the time being to have brought the Greek troubles to a 
close, when in February 1833 Prince Otho of Bavaria 
was sent by the Powers to rule over the Hellenes, with a 
guaranteed loan and a considerably better frontier than 
that which had been offered to Leopold of Saxe- 
Coburg. His comments, however, show a just appre- 
ciation of the worth of the settlement ; the new 
frontier was *' beautiful," but he saw that the choice of 
a youth of eighteen to govern the distracted kingdom 
was to be deplored. In a similar spirit he contented 
himself with a mere expression of adverse opinion 



THE QUADRUPLE ALLIANCE, 53 

when Austria proposed to tighten her hold on Italy 
through the device of a confederation under her pro- 
tection, and when Metternich endeavoured to persuade 
the Diet of Frankfort to compel the minor potentates 
of Grermany to abrogate the free constitutions which 
had been granted under stress of popular discontent. 
With regard to the rebellion in Poland, he maintained 
an attitude of almost ostentatious indifference, taking 
his stand on the ground that the Treaty of Vienna must 
be maintained. This appeal to a treaty which he was 
doing his best to convert into a dead letter, as far as 
Belgium was concerned, had in it not a little inconsis- 
tency; the real fact was that the British Government 
had no ships to send into the Baltic, and was too pru- 
dent to threaten intervention, even in concert with 
France, when unable to follow up its words by deeds, 
*' God is too high, ^ runs a Polish proverb, ^'and 
Poland too far. ' The Foreign Secretary ventured, in- 
deed, when the gallant resistance of the Poles had been 
finally crushed, to try to obtain a little relaxation of 
their punishment, by appealing again to the Viennese 
compact. Under that treaty it had been declared that 
Poland should be attached to Russia by its constitution. 
It was fair, therefore, urged Palmerston, to consider that 
the Polish constitution existed under the sanction of the 
treaty. ** Not in the least, was the upshot of the curt 
reply of the Russian minister. Count Nesselrode, '* the 
constitution was not at all a consequence of the treaty, 
but a spontaneous act of the sovereign power of the 
Czar; it had been annulled by the fact of the rebel- 
lion." After a final remonstrance, sent through Lord 
Durham, who was then on a special mission to St. 
Petersburg, Palmerston ceased to press for better terms 
for the conquered race. It is difficult to see what more 



54 LIFE OF VISCOUNT PALMEBSTON. 

he could have done, and the most bitter of critics must 
acknowledge that his action was at any rate straight- 
forward. He did not, as did the French ministry, 
encourage the Poles during the brief hour of their 
success, and desert them in their despair. 

While defending his Polish policy in a somewhat 
angry House of Commons, Palmerston pointed out that 
no effectual aid could be given to the insurgents with- 
out involvingEurope in a general war, in which the Poles 
would have been crushed by the joint forces of Russia, 
Prussia, and Austria, long before aid could reach them 
from the west. There was, however, a quarter of 
Europe where English intervention could be employed 
with effect, and upon it Palmerston, the Belgian affair 
being practically settled, proceeded to focus his atten- 
tion, waiting for an opportunity to strike. This was the 
Peninsula, where anarchy was rapidly gaining the upper 
hand, with the usual results that foreigners were being 
maltreated, and satisfaction was difficult to obtain. 
In Portugal, Dom Miguel had rapidly become unen- 
durable. His officers imprisoned and ill-treated British 
subjects, and his captains seized British vessels. At 
first, what Palmerston termed " a peremptory demand 
for immediate and full redress," was sufficient. The 
offending officials and captains were dismissed, and full 
compensation was paid to the victims of Miguel's tyranny 
and inefficiency. When, however, the French Govern- 
ment made similar demands, Miguel had the effrontery to 
ask forEnglish protection, .and to refer the French to ICng- 
land for satisfaction. Though Lord Palmerston sternly 
informed him that the British Government was not 
bound by its treaties with Portugal to " blindly take up 
a quarrel into which a Portuguese administration might, 
by its infatuation, plunge its country," he remained firm 



THE QUADRUPLE ALLIANCE. 55 

in his obstinacy, with the result that a French squadron 
was despatched to the Tagus, which captured his ves- 
sels one by one, and finally took the whole of the 
Portuguese fleet without firing a shot. 

The Tory party, as usual, was highly indignant at 
these French successes, but, as Palraerston subsequently 
pointed out, it would have been absurd for England to 
exact reparation on her own account, and at the same 
time to prevent France, on her side, from obtaining 
redress. And the value of the good understanding with 
France became even more clearly evident when, on the 
arrival of Dom Pedro of Brazil in Europe to support 
the forlorn fortunes of his daughter, Dom Miguel had 
recourse to a fresh reign of terror, which filled the 
Lisbon gaols with more than a thousand additional 
victims. Of course, Englishmen and Frenchmen were 
soon involved in this wholesale persecution, and Eng- 
lish naval officers were beaten in the streets of Lisbon. 
Acting in concert with his F^rench colleague, Captain 
Markland, the commander of the British squadron in the 
Tagus, immediately sent ships up the river to protect 
British residents, and Palmerston, thoroughly endorsing 
his conduct, sent two men-of-war to his support. During 
the civil war which followed it was, as Peel pointed out 
in a spirit of censure, the *' actual assistance of France 
and the countenance of Britain," which enabled the 
cause of Dom Pedro to hold its own, and ultimately to 
prevail. Vessels were fitted out in French and English 
ports without any opposition from the authorities ; there 
was a large contingent of English volunteers in the 
army with which Pedro entered Oporto; it was an Eng- 
lishman, Captain Charles Napier, who commanded his 
fleet when, on July 2nd, 1833, it annihilated Miguel's 
navy ofl" Cape St. Vincent, *' to the great delight,' wrote 



56 LIFE OF VISCOUNT FALMFESTON. 

Greville, " of the Whigs, and equal mortification of the 
Tories/' A month before the Duke of Wellington had 
carried, in a sense condemnatory of the Government, an 
address in the House of Lords in favour of a policy of 
neutrality, which was met in the House of Commons by 
a resolution approving Palmerston's conduct of affairs. 
Speaking to the nation, Palmerston, as in duty bound, 
contended, with some phiusibiJity, that the British 
Government had acted with perfect good faith to both of 
the belligerent parties. His supporters made little 
attempt to conceal their satisfaction at the wholesale 
breaches of the Foreign Enlistment Act committed by 
English volunteers when they joined Donna Maria's 
army and saved constitutionalism in Portugal. 

For the moment it seemed as if Napier's victory had 
ruined Dom Miguel's fortunes, but when all seemed lost 
his cause received considerable reinforcement through 
the raising of the Carlist banner in Spain. On the 
29th of September 1833, Ferdinand Wl., the most 
worthless of an indifferent race, died, leaving behind 
him two little daughters by his fourth wife, Christina, 
whom on his death-bed he had appointed Eegent. Upon 
Spain was immediately inflicted a succession question 
precisely similar to that which was ruining Portugal. 
By the Pragmatic Sanction, or edict, of 1713, the suc- 
cession of females had been limited, through a modifi- 
cation of the Salic law, to cases in which there was no 
direct or collateral male issue, and during the earlier 
years of Ferdinand's reign the heir to the throne had 
been his brother Don Carlos, in whom were centred the 
hopes of the Ultra- Absolutists and Clericalists. Shortly 
after his fourth marriage, however, Ferdinand issued a 
new Pragmatic Sanction repealing that of 1713, and 
restoring the old Castilian custom under which females 



THE QUADEUPLE ALLIANCE. 57 

could inherit, and to this arrangement he adhered 
during the last year of his life. In Spain, therefore, as 
in Portugal, an uncle representing the Absohitist cause 
was opposed to a niece whose friends, whether they 
wished it or not, were forced to become Constitutional- 
ists. At the time of Ferdinand^s death, Carlos was 
with Miguel at Evora, and it was probable that if he 
were to make a dash for the throne, he would meet with 
but feeble resistance. 

The moral support of England and France, implied 
in their prompt recognition of the child-queen Isabella, 
saved her throne for the moment, but it was evident that 
a mere declaration of sympathy was not enough. A deci- 
sive blow must be dealt at both the Pretenders; and Lord 
Palmerston so contrived it that, as he wrote to his 
brother, not only did it '' settle Portugal, and go some 
way to settle Spain also, but, what is of more permanent 
and extensive importance, it establishes an . . . alliance 
among the constitutional States of the West which will 
serve as a powerful counterpoise to the Holy Alliance 
of the East. ' Like all strokes of genius, the proceed- 
ing was extremely simple. On the 22nd of April 1834, 
a Quadruple Treaty was signed by England, France, 
Spain, and Portugal, by which the four Powers bound 
themselves to compel Carlos and Miguel to withdraw 
from the Peninsula. 

I carried it through the Cabinet by a coup de main [wrote Palmer- 
Bton to his brother, with a chuckle] taking them by surprise 
and not leaving them time to make objection. I was not equally suc- 
cessful with old Talley and the French Government, for they have 
objections in plenty. But they were all as to the form in which I 
had proposed to make them parties to the transaction [i.e., that 
France should give her consent to an arrangement previously con- 
cluded between England, Spain, and Poi'tugalJ, not to the thing 
itself. 



58 LIFE OF VISCOUNT PALMERSTON. 

Palmerston's triumph was immediate and apparently 
complete. Metternich was much annoyed, and would 
certainly have interposed on behalf of Don Carlos if 
Palmerston had not taken the initiative. " Isabella,*' he 
wrote to the Austrian minister at Paris, *' is the Revolu- 
tion incarnate in its most dangerous form ; Don Carlos 
represents the monarchical principle hand to hand with 
pure revolution." But the instant collapse of the Pre- 
tenders left him no excuse for intervention. Miguel 
threw up the game and went to Genoa, Carlos to 
London. 

Nothing [writes Palmerston on June 27] ever went so well as the 
Quadruple Treaty. It has ended a war which might otherwise have 
lasted months. Miguel, when he surrendered, had with him from 
twelve to sixteen thousand men, with whom he could have marched 
into Spain, forty-five pieces of artillery, and twelve hundred cavalry. 
Bad he dashed into Spain, and taken Carlos with him, there was only 
Rodil with ten thousand men between him and Madrid, and part of 
Rodil's army was suspected of Cai'lism. But the moral effect of the 
treaty cowed them all — generals, officers, and men; and that army 
surrendered without firing a shot. 

'* The cause of Carlos,^' continued Palmerston, ''is 
desperate "; but there he made a mistake. Carlos re- 
appeared in Spain, and his arms, though confined to the 
northern provinces, were there, thanks to the abilities 
and ferocity of his general Zumalacarregui, uniformly 
successful. The Isabellists were unfortunate in their 
chief; for Christina, though a woman of great ability, 
was wholly ignorant of government, and much addicted 
to gallantry. But, worst of all. Constitutionalism in 
Spain proved to be a plant of sickly growth ; the forms 
of party government were there, a ministry and an 
opposition, Moderados and Progressists, but the spirit 
was wanting; there were no fixed principles, no political 
creeds, nothing but envy, strife, division, and a struggle 



THE QUADRUPLE ALLIANCE, 69 

for the loaves and fishes of office. These evils were 
intensified by the growing want of cordiality between 
France and England, for when the British minister at 
Madrid gave advice to a Progressist premier, it was an 
effective counterblow for the representative of France to 
promise moral support to the Moderado leader of the 
Opposition. 

It was in 1835, after the Whigs had returned to office 
under Melbourne, that the entente cordiale between 
England and France, which had won Belgium its 
liberty and saved Portugal from Miguel, began to wane 
and perish until, to anticipate a saying of Palmerston's 
at the time of the Spanish marriages, there was neither 
entente nor cordialite. This unfortunate coolness may 
undoubtedly be traced, to a considerable extent, to 
personal causes. Talleyrand, the doyen of the diplo- 
matic world entertained strong feelings of antipathy 
towards Palmerston, who probably spoke as he wrote of 
him, as " old Talley," and who certainly treated him, 
though quite unintentionally, with scanty courtesy. 
Madame de Lieven, with the usual exuberance of femi- 
nine spite, informed Greville that it was impossible to 
describe the contempt as well as dislike which the 
whole Corps Diplomatique had for Palmerston, and, 
pointing to Talleyrand who was sitting close by, surtout 
ltd. In 1835 the old Prince returned to Paris, and 
promptly took his revenge on the English secretary by 
informing Louis Philippe that intimate relations with 
England were no longer worth preserving, and that 
Palmerston was hopelessly untrustworthy. The result 
of these representations was that France began to draw 
rapidly nearer to the autocratic Powers, whereby, as 
Pnlmerston pointed out in a letter to Lord Granville, 
*' she [a constitutional monarchy] was placing herself 



60 LIFE OF VISCOUNT PALMEBSTON. 

in a false position, and at no distant time would find her 
mistake.'^ 

The informal dissolution of the Quadruple Alliance 
naturally had its effect upon the fortunes of Isabella. 
Little or no head was made against the Carlist generals, 
whose hideous ferocity was almost worthy of Alva; 
ministry succeeded ministry ; and the constitutional 
cause, assailed by the forces of absolutism from with- 
out, was nearly shattered by a revolutionary outbreak 
from within. The Queen Eegent soon discovered that 
the Quadruple Treaty was far from proving a good 
working plan. The joint intervention of England and 
France, which would have ended the war in a moment, 
was out of the question; and neither of the Powers 
was willing to act as the other's catspaw by marching 
into Spain alone. '* France," said Louis Philippe to 
the Chambers, " keeps the blood of her children for 
her own cause."" There was even a time when Lord 
Palmerston accused the French Court of openly sym- 
pathising with the Carlists, and when the Pretender's 
bands were allowed to smuggle arms across the Spanish 
frontier in direct contravention to the supplementary 
articles of the Treaty. 

Under the circumstances, Palmerston was forced to 
play a somewhat unsatisfactory part. At one time, in 
accordance with the terms of the Treaty, a British 
squadron was stationed on Spanish coasts with orders to 
co-operate with the Isabellists ; but such assistance was 
only partial in its operation, and had but little effect 
on the ultimate result of the war. Even less effective 
was the British legion which in 1835 was allowed by an 
Order in Council to volunteer for Spanish service under 
Colonel de Lacy Evans. All the arguments that had 
been used against the volunteers to Portugal could be 



TEJE QUADEUFLE ALLIANCE. 61 

used, and were used, with even greater strength on the 
present occasion. Lord Mahon pointed out in an ex- 
ceedingly teliing speech, made on March 10th, 1837, 
that, even if it were allowed that intervention in the 
affairs of Spain were justifiable, the means adopted 
were the worst that could have been chosen. "It was 
peace without tranquillity, war without honour. ... If 
the noble lord was determined to unclose the temple of 
peace for war, he should have thrown open the main 
portal through which British soldiers could have walked 
upright; and not have sent them through a side door, 
by which they had to creep upon their hands and knees 
through the slimy and intricate intrigues of the court of 
Madrid/' On the 17th of April, Sir Henry Hardinge 
criticised the military side of the question, and argued 
that Spain where the butchery of prisoners was the 
order of the day, was no school for British soldiers. He 
had been for a long time in the army, but he had never 
witnessed or heard of such acts of insubordination, 
mutiny, and ferocity, as had been committed by the 
soldiers of the Legion. Palmerston made brilliant 
replies to these attacks, and, as usual, carried the House 
with him, but his examples, taken from the Elizabethan 
epoch, of auxiliary for&es sent to the aid of the 
Huguenots and the Protestants in the Low Countries, 
were really not much to the point, any more than his 
periods about the advantages of a Constitutional over 
an Absolutist government. The success of the Legion 
V7ould have cut the ground from under the feet of the 
Tories ; but, alarmed by a proclamation issued by Don 
Carlos that all foreign prisoners would be shot, half- 
disciplined, half-starved, and grossly neglected by the 
Spanish Government, General Evans's force accom- 
plished little beyond co-operating in the important 



62 LIFE OF VISCOUNT PALMEBSTON. 

relief of Bilbao, and, after a bad defeat at Hernani, it 
was eventually disbanded in 1838. Of course, tbe 
Foreign Secretary's best excuse for tliis intermittent 
form of armed assistance would have been that, in face 
of the suspicious attitude of France, direct intervention 
would have been attended with the utmost risk, but it 
was impossible to make use of that argument in 
public. When civil war ceased in Spain through the 
sheer exhaustion of the Oarlists, Palmerston could 
claim, indeed, that the Liberal cause had been trium- 
phant, but not that the victory had been speedily gained 
or that its results were likely to be permanent; for after 
the Carlists came military pro?iunciamie?itos, and Con- 
stitutionalism, buffeted by the winds of faction, was 
very slow to take root. It might fairly be said, how- 
ever, that he had done his best with unpromising mate- 
rials, and that, if Louis Philippe had proved true to his 
word, the result would have been very different. 



63 



CHAPTER ly. 

THE QUADRILATERAL ALLIANCE. 

1831-1841. 

Lord Palmerston and the Porte — Ibrahim Pasha's advance on Con- 
stantinople — Treaty of Unkiar Skelessi — Anti-Russian policy of 
Lord Palmerston — The first Afghan war — Barnes's despatches- 
Collapse of the Turkish Empire — Divergence of views between 
England and France — The Quadrilateral Alliance — Lord Palmer- 
ston's difiiculties — His bold course of action — His estimate of the 
situation — Louis Philippe gives way — The fall of Acre — Lord 
Palmerston's treatment of Guizot — Settlement of the Syrian 
question — Lord Palmerston's marriage. 

Though Lord Palmerston, when Minister at War, had 
viewed the Greek struggle for independence with ardent 
approval, and though his aphorism concerning the 
Turks — ** What energy can be expected from a people 
with no heels to their shoes ?" — has passed into a pro- 
verb, he was never a believer in the hopeless degeneracy 
of the Ottoman Porte. ** All that we hear every day of 
the week," he once wrote to Sir Henry Bulwer, " about 
the decay of the Turkish Empire, and its being a dead 
body or a sapless trunk, and so forth, is pure and un- 
adulterated nonsense. ... If we can procure for it ten 
years of peace under the joint protection of the five 
Powers, and if those years are profitably employed in 



64 LIFE OF VISCOUNT PALMEESTON. 

reorgnniziDg the internal system of the Empire, there is 
no reason whatever why it should not become again a 
respectable Power." This opinion, even if not perma- 
nently tenable, was probably that of the majority of 
Englishmen at the time of the formation of Lord 
Grey's ministry, when the Sultan Mahmoud was making 
real, if somewhat rough and ready, attempts to intro- 
duce reforms into his dominions. Palmerston further 
thought that the downfall of the Porte would be far more 
likely to occur through external violence than through 
internal combustion. For the moment, however, the 
final blow seemed likely to come from one who was 
nominally its subject. For in 1831 Mahomet Ali, the 
crafty Albanian who had risen from the position of 
tobacco-seller to that of the Pasha of Egypt, sent his 
adopted son Ibrahim against Acre, the fortress which 
had defied Napoleon ; its fall in the following May 
placed all Syria at his mercy. The surrender of Damas- 
cus and Antioch followed; the line of the Taurus was 
crossed in July ; in October the brilliant Ibrahim 
scattered to the winds at Konieh the last of the Turkish 
armies, and there was nothing to prevent his casting 
out his shoe over Constantinople. 

The peril of the Porte was undoubtedly extreme, and 
Palmerston was anxious that an afiirmative response 
should be made to the Sultan's appeals for assistance, 
which reached England about the time of the battle of 
Konieh. The Cabinet, however, overruled his opinion, 
and he must have felt considerably annoyed when it fell 
to him to defend English non-intervention in the House 
of Commons, on the ground that our naval operations 
on the Dutch coast and elsewhere were so extensive 
that it would have been impossible to send to the 
Mediterranean such a squadron as would have served 



THE QUADBILATEBAL ALLIANCE. 65 

the purpose of the Porte, and at the same time have 
comported with the naval dignity of England. His 
appeal rejected, though with regret, by England, and 
with less ceremony by France, where public sympathy 
was wholly with the Pasha, Mahmoud, in his despair, 
applied to his ancient euemy, Nicholas of Russia, The 
response was prompt ; a Russian army was despatched 
to the mouth of the Bosphorus, Ibrahim retired before 
it, and Constantinople was saved. But the price was 
heavy; by the treaty of Unkiar Skelessi, signed by the 
representatives of the two Powers, on the 8th of July 
1833, the Porte bound itself, in return for a promise from 
Russia of military and naval assistance whenever re- 
quired, to come to an " unreserved understanding " 
with that Power ** upon all matters which concern their 
respective tranquillity and safety," that is, to allow 
Nicholas to interfere when he pleased in Turkish 
affairs. A secret article further engaged the Porte *' to 
close the strait of the Dardanelles, that is to say, not 
to allow any foreign vessels of war to enter therein 
under any pretext whatsoever.'^ In short, the treaty 
made Mahmoud the vassal of Nicholas, and the Black 
Sea a Russian lake. 

The natural result of this master-stroke of Russian 
diplomacy, the terms of which were known throughout 
Europe within six weeks, was that Palmerston, with the 
full approval of his eccentric sovereign, and the ap- 
plause of the Radicals in Parliament, was during the 
remainder of the reign of William IV. decidedly anti- 
Russian in his policy. He joined with the French 
Government in a vigorous protest against the treaty, but 
it was, of course, mere waste-paper. The destruction 
of the liberties of Poland in the previous year; the con- 
clusion in the following year of a new treaty with the 

5 



66 LIFE OF VISCOUNT PALMEBSTON. 

Porte, by which Russia acquired fresh territory iu Asia ; 
the mnndate issued by Russia, Prussia, and Austria, for 
the occupation of the little republic of Cracow, the last 
remnant of independent Poland, by Austrian troops ; the 
presence of Russian agents at the court of the Shah of 
Persia ; the Russian intrigues for the ruin of Colonel 
Chesney's expedition to open up the Euphrates route to 
India — all these facts taken together seemed to point 
to a systematic attempt on the part of Nicholas to 
aggrandize his dominions, and that at the expense of 
England. '* Ptussia," wrote Palmerston to his brother, 
'* is pursuing a system of universal aggression on all 
sides, partly from the personal character of the Emperor, 
partly from the permanent system of her government." 
In the House of Commons, O'Connell, Mr. Attwood, and 
other Radicals, hurled abuse at the Czar, and the 
British fleet was sent to cruise in the neighbourhood 
of the Dardanelles ; but though the two countries were 
on the verge of a quarrel, no actual outbreak took place. 
If Palmerston shrank from war with Russia from 
motives of prudence, Nicholas refrained from direct 
hostilities with England because he found others to 
fight his battles for him. The mission of Russian 
agents to Teheran and Cabul was the means employed, 
not for the last time, to lure England into operations 
beyond the Indus, and to drain her of wealth and 
strength without hazarding a single Cossack or a single 
rouble. Excuses may be advanced for the first Afghan 
war, as for every war. The Persian attack on Herat 
was undoubtedly of the most formidable nature, and was 
only averted by chance in the person of Eldred Pot- 
tinger, and Melbourne's cabinet were of opinion that 
" decisive measures " in Afghanistan were necessary to 
counterbalance Russian preponderance in Persia. Lord 



THE QUADRILATERAL ALLIANCE. 67 

Heytesbury, the Governor-General of India, who was 
known to be an admirer of Nicholas, was accordingly 
recalled; and Lord Auckland sent out with instructions 
to inaugurate a forward policy. Translated into action, 
the forward policy resolved itself into Burnes's mission 
to Cabul, which was checkmated by the counter mission 
of the Russian Vicovitch, and next into the expedition 
to Cabul with the object of deposing Dost Mahommed, 
who had proved an able ruler, and crowning in his 
stead the incompetent refugee, Shah Soojah. Endea- 
vours have been made to fix the blame for this mad 
leap in the dark upon Palmerston ; Lord Auckland, it 
has been said, was his Governor-general, but though 
there is strong presumption, documentary proof is 
wanting. Certainly Lord Palmerston was the man of 
action in the Melbourne Cabinet, and at this time was 
full of distrust of Russia. On the other hand, it may 
be noticed that though he strongly approved of the 
expedition, he did not, even when its prospects were 
most favourable, assume any direct responsibility for it. 
In a letter to Lord Melbourne, he said : 

Auckland seems to have taken a just view of the importance of 
making Afghanistan a British and not a Russian dependency, since the 
autocrat has determined that it shall not be left to itself. If we suc- 
ceed in taking the Afghans under our protection, and in garrisoning 
(if necessary) Herat, we shall regain our ascendancy in Persia, and 
get our commercial treaty with that Power. But British ascendancy 
in Persia gives security on the eastward to Turkey, and tends to make 
the Sultan more independent, and to place the Dardanelles more 
securely out of the grasp of Nicholas. Again, our baffling on so large 
a scale the intrigues and attempts of Russia cannot fail to add 
greatly to the moral weight and political influence of England, and 
to help us ia many European questions, while it must also tend to give 
us strength and authority at home. 

This is the language of the supporter, rather than of 
the creator, of a line of action, but it must be owned 

5 * 



68 LIFE OF VISCOUNT PALMFIiSTON. 

that it is exceediDgly compromising. The idea that 
Cabul was the centre whence prosperity was to illumi- 
nate the British Empire, is completely unlike the 
sobriety of most of Palmerston's conclusions, and shows 
that his judgment was for the time being completely 
clouded by irritation. The actual result of the cam- 
paign was indeed a grave comment on his extravagant 
anticipations, and his argument that the disaster was 
caused by the neglect of proper military precautions will 
not bear investigation, for the second Afghan war 
proved conclusively, even if the first did not, the 
futility of an attempt on the part of England, to keep a 
permanent hold on Cabul. But Lord Palmerston and his 
colleagues were able to reap the credit which attended 
the commencement of operations, while to their succes- 
sors fell the task of dealing with the collapse. 

Connected with the declaration of the Afghan war 
was a proceeding of political expediency, the mention 
of which would probably be omitted by a panegyrist of 
the Melbourne ministry — possibly without much danger 
of detection — but which a candid biographer of the 
most important member of that ministry can hardly 
leave unnoticed. We allude to the suppression of pas- 
sages in the despatches of Sir Alexander Burnes which 
were unf^ivourable to the forward policy of the Govern- 
ment, with the general result that the unfortunate envoy 
became the ostensible defender of a course of action to 
which he was directly opposed. The proceeding was, 
to say the least of it, one of doubtful morality, and if 
Barnes had lived, a speedy detection must have cer- 
tainly ensued. As it was, the murderous hand of 
Akbar Khan saved the Government from an ignomi- 
nious exposure. The stigma of complicity in the war 
was allowed to remain on Burnes's memory, and, though 



THE QTJABEILATERAL ALLIANCE. 69 

the truth had leaked out in driblets, it was not until the 
next generation that the whole scandal became publicly 
known. Here, again, it is impossible to fix on Palmer- 
ston more than a share in the responsibility for the 
collective sins of the Melbourne Cabinet ; but his line of 
defence, when in 1861 the whole question was brought 
before the House of Commons by Mr. Dunlop, would 
seem to prove that he was more than a tacitly consen- 
tient party to the transaction, and even regarded it as 
rather praiseworthy than otherwise. 

It is quite true [he said] that several of the despatches were cur- 
tailed and parts omitted, but enough remained to reveal the outline of 
affairs which I have traced. ... If. on the one hand, passages con- 
taining the opinions of Lieutenant Burnes have been omitted, on the 
other hand, a despatch written by Sir William Macnaghten, by the 
order of Lord Auckland, censuring in very severe terms and disavow- 
ing totally the policy of Lieutenant Burnes, has also been omitted. 
The opinions of Lieutenant Burnes which are omitted from the 
despatches formed no elements in the policy which was adopted, and 
it was unnecessary to state reasons and opinions by which the Indian 
Government had not been guided. It is not necessary when you give 
reasons for a course you pursue to give also the reasons against that 
course. They form no part of your case. You state reasons why 
you do not do a thing, but it is not usual to state reasons which you 
refuse to accept and do not act upon. 

Lord Palmerston's views as to the composition of 
State Papers may be left severely alone. If all Blue 
Books are compiled in this fashion, they are indeed, as 
Sir John Kaye, the historian of the Afghan war, termed 
those containing the despatches of Sir Alexander Burnes, 
counterfeits which the ministerial stamp forces into cur- 
rency, defrauding a present generation, and handing 
down to posterity a chain of dangerous lies. 

Long before the horrors of the retreat from Cabul 
had been avenged by General Pollock, the developmant 
of events in Europe had converted Palmerstpn from an 



70 LIFE OF VISCOUNT PALMEESTON. 

attitude hostile to Russia to one of cordial co-operation 
with the Czar. The treaty of Unkiar Skelessi had 
gained the Porte a respite ; it had by no means re- 
duced Mehemet Ali to impotence. The Pasha was 
determined to make himself Lord of the Levant: 
Mahmoud, untaught by his previous disasters, was 
panting for revenge. It was only by supreme exertions, 
by threats, cajoleries, and naval demonstrations, that 
the Powers, forced by the acuteness of the crisis to act 
with some appearance of concert, were able to prevent 
the two from flying at each other's throats. At last, in 
1839, the inevitable collision occurred ; once more 
Ibrahim Pasha smote the Turkish troops hip and thigh; 
their ruin was followed, in startling succession, by the 
death of Mahmoud, who was succeeded by a feeble boy, 
Abd-el-Medjid, and the treachery of the Turkish ad- 
miral, who handed over his fleet to the triumphant 
Mehemet Ali. 

Once more the Turkish empire seemed to be in 
extrejnis, for Mehemet Ali declined to be satisfied with 
anything smaller than the entire and hereditary posses- 
sion of his conquests, the concession of which would 
at once have reduced the Porte to the position of a 
second-rate Power. Intervention was necessary, and 
collective intervention, for if Russia had been allowed 
to go to the rescue alone, the treaty of Unkiar Skelessi 
would certainly have been renewed in some more objec- 
tionable form. It was, therefore, Palmerston's object 
to obtain united action, and so to merge the Unkiar 
Skelessi agreement in some more general arrangement 
for which the Powers would be conjointly responsible. 
But directly the coercion of Mehemet Ali came under 
discussion, a complete divergence of opinion between 
France and England was forced into prominence. How- 



THE QTJABBILATERAL ALLIANCE. 71 

ever anxious the French Ministry might be to keep on 
good terms with England, there could be no doubt 
that the people were all in favour of the Egyptian. 
The establishment of French influence in the land of 
the Pharaohs, the high-road to India, had been a long- 
cherished dream, which Napoleon for a moment had 
made a reality; and if it was a dream of pleasant antici- 
pation for the patriot Frenchman, it was not the less 
delectable because it was a familiar nightmare to Eng- 
lish ministers. When therefore Palmerston urged that 
Mehemet Ali should be compelled to restore the Turkish 
fleet without delay, Marshal Soult, the French Premier, 
flatly declined to adopt the proposal; and subsequent 
negotiations showed that while England was desirous 
of confining Mehemet Ali to Egypt, Soult would gladly 
see him in possession of Syria and Arabia. M. de 
Remusat, at a later stage of the complication, avowed 
in the Chamber that the aim of the French Government 
was to establish a second-rate Power in the Mediter- 
ranean, whose fleet might unite with that of France as 
a counterpoise to that of England. 

Inaction at such a crisis would have resulted, as 
Palmerston afterwards wrote to Lord Melbourne, in the 
'* practical division of the Turkish empire into two 
separate and independent States, whereof one would be 
the dependency of France, and the other a satellite of 
Russia ; and in both of which our political independence 
would be annulled and our commercial -nterests sacri- 
ficed." He resolved, therefore, to throw aside the 
entente cordiale, and to enter into intimate relations 
with the autocratic Powers, of whom the Czar, delighted 
at the discomfiture of Louis Philippe, whom he scorned 
as a constitutionalist and Oi. parvenu, was more than ready 
to meet him half way. Baron Brunnow was sent to 



72 LIFE OF VISCOUNT PALMEBSTON, 

London, and soon came to terms with Palmerston, who 
went, as he wrote to Sir Henry Bulwer, on the sound 
principle that '' there was no wise medium between con- 
fidence and distrust; and that if we tied up Russia by 
treaty we might trust her, and, trusting her, we had 
better mix no evidence of suspicion with our confi- 
dence." It was agreed that England, Austria, and 
France — unless she chose to hold aloof — should operate 
against Mehemet Ali on the coasts of Syria, Egypt, and 
in the Mediterranean, that to Russia should be entrusted 
the defence of Constantinople from Ibrahim Pasha, it 
being understood, however, that her forces were under 
the control of the Allies, and — the additional stipula- 
tion was Palmerston's — that in the event of a Russian 
fleet entering the Bosphorus, a British and French fleet 
should simultaneously enter the Dardanelles. 

Neither Soult nor Thiers, who succeeded him as head 
of the Ministry in March 1840, dared to steer a bold 
course. They feared public opinion if they joined the 
Powers ; their sovereign would not allow them to 
espouse the cause of Mehemet Ali. Thiers was indeed 
suspected, probably unjustly, of trying to countermine 
Palmerston by inaugurating a fresh negotiation between 
Mehemet Ali and the Porte. Lord Palmerston at once 
decided upon action. On the 15th of July he signed a 
Quadrilateral treaty with Russia, Austria, and Prussia 
on the one hand, and the representative of the Porte on 
the other, by which the four Powers bound themselves 
to carry into effect the arrangements already concluded 
for defending the Porte and bringing the Pasha to 
reason. The latter was informed that he should receive 
the hereditary sovereignty of Egypt and the Pashalic of 
Acre for life if he submitted within ten days ; if he was 
obstinate, Egypt alone should be his portion. Pharaoh's 



THE QUADBILATEBAL ALLIANCE, 73 

heart was hardened, and he refused to accept any terms 
which did not include Egypt and the whole of Syria. 

Lord Palmerston had a most difficult game to play at 
this crisis, but his nerve and resource, or, as his enemies 
were wont to term the quality — and sometimes with 
perfect justice — unscrupulousness, enabled him to sweep 
the board. It was almost a case of Athanasius contra 
miindum, for, with the exception of the Czar, the mem- 
bers of the Quadruple Alliance were by no means dis- 
posed to go to extremes. Metternich had no sooner 
agreed to help to coerce the Pasha than he began to 
throw cold water on the scheme, and the Prussian 
Minister followed his directions with dog-like fidelity. 
The English Government was informed that Austria 
had only joined the Quadrilateral Alliance with the 
weight of moral support, her position as a purely conti- 
nental Power not allowing her to play any other part in 
active operations against Egypt. Lord Granville, our 
Minister at Paris, was also of opinion that Palmerston 
had embarked upon a most dangerous course. At 
home the Court was against him, chiefly through the 
representations of the King of the Belgians, who was 
thoroughly alarmed at the prospect of a war between 
his niece and his father-in-law. Even from his col- 
leagues Palmerston met with opposition rather than 
encouragement The Whig members of the Cabinet, 
especially Lord Holland and Lord Clarendon, were by 
no means in favour of a rupture of the French alliance, 
and Palmerston, in his letters to his brother, constantly 
complained of "intrigues and cabals," instigated appa- 
rently by "Bear'"' EUice, who, although not a member 
of the Ministry, had great influence with the chiefs."^ 

* Mr. Ellice, who mai'ried Eai'l Grey's sister, and held the appoint- 
ments of Secretary to the Treasury and Secretary of War from 1830 



74 LIFE OF VISCOUNT FALMFESTON. 

When Lord John Russell, who had at first approved of 
the good understanding with Russia, suddenly veered 
round and joined the malcontents, the Foreign Secre- 
tary's bed was by no means one of roses. 

Palmerston, however, confidently steered his way 
through the storm. His chief protection was the want 
of initiative in Lord Melbourne, who, although he was 
so worried that he could neither '' eat, nor drink, nor 
sleep/' failed to summon up resolution enough to take 
to task his resolute brother-in-law — a relationship which 
had begun in the previous year when Palmerston mar- 
ried the Premier's sister, the widow of Lord Cowper, 
The reluctant consent of the Premier to the Quadruple 
Treaty was extorted from him by Palmerston^through 
the simple device of threatened resignation, and the 
Greville Memoirs contain an amusing account of elabo- 
rate preparations for a battle royal in the Cabinet which 
broke down through Melbourne's reluctance to speak 
his mind. On another occasion it appears that Lord 
Holland was prepared to attack the management of the 
Syrian question, but was completely non-plussed by 
Palmerston, who produced a letter of warning from Sir 
Henry Bulwer, then Charge d' Affaires at Paris, which 
proved that Palmerston's enemies did not scruple to 

to 1834, is probably the " E " of whom Palmerston wrote to 

Lord John Russell in 1842 that, " upon every great matter which we 
have had to deal with in our foreign relations while we were in office 
he was strongly against me, and was always trying to get up a cabal 
to thwart me ; and upon every one of these matters, whether in regard 
to Belgium. Portugal, Spain, India, Syria, or any other, he was proved 
by the result to have been wrong. Now one of his most approved 
methods of cabal is to write away every day to all the loading mem- 
bers of the Whig party, to instil into them or to extract from them 
opinions adverse to what he thinks my opinions to be. He practised 
this method very extensively, and with much momentary success, 
about the Syrian question." 



THE QUADBILATEBAL ALLIANCE. 75 

divulge the future proceedings of the English Cabinet 
in the capital of a nation with whom we were within a 
little of going to war. It must be admitted that the 
conduct of the Foreign Secretary was very irritating to 
an earnest colleague. " Our Cabinet/^ wrote Greville, 
** is a complete republic ^' ; he might have added, with 
an imperium in imperio, for Palmerston had established 
a complete despotism in the Foreign Office. The most 
important arrangements were concluded entirely on his 
own responsibility and without consulting anyone; and 
when he disarmed opposition at home by concessions to 
France, he took care to neutralize those concessions by 
inspiring, and perhaps actually writing, the most bitter 
articles against Louis Philippe in the Morning 
Chronicle. In short, he seemed to look upon the whole 
affair as an exciting game in which both sides might be 
pardoned if they hit a little wildly, and did not scruple 
to trample under foot every tradition which regulated the 
conduct of Cabinet business. He was not in the least 
angry with Lord Holland or Lord John Russell ; and 
when the former died, within a few days of the trial of 
strength in the Cabinet, Palmerston, with his usual 
magnanimity, hastened to acknowledge that though 
Lord Holland " thought, or rather felt, strongly on poli- 
tical affairs, he never mixed any personal feeling with 
his public differences." It cannot be said that Pal- 
merston appeared in an equally favourable light in a 
war of words waged by him at this time against an 
obscurer foe, Mr. Urquhart. Furious at his dismissal 
from the embassy at Constantinople, Mr. Urquhart 
retaliated by accusing Palmerston of having, in 1836, 
favoured the voyage of the Vixen to the coast of Cir- 
cassia though it was an infringement of the Russian 
blockade, and of having formerly countenanced the 



76 LIFE OF VISCOUNT PALMERSTON. 

publication in the Portfolio, a periodical edited by Mr. 
Urquhart, of various Russian despatches obtained from 
the Polish insurgents, which constituted a complete 
exposure of the Machiavellism of Czars and their 
ministers. Lord Palmerston met both statements, 
which were of course calculated to damage not a little 
the friendly relations recently established with Russia, 
with a flat denial ; but the subsequent admissions of 
Mr. Backhouse, the permanent Under-Secretary for 
Foreign Affairs, tended to throw considerable doubts on 
his veracity ; doubts which are, perhaps, strengthened 
by the complete silence of Lord Palmerston's biographers 
about the Portfolio. 

The best defence for Palmerston's high-handed and 
reckless conduct at the outset of the new reign is that 
he, almost alone in Europe, had accurately estimated 
the relative strength of the various factors in the Syrian 
problem, and was therefore justified in seeking at all 
hazards to get his own way. He knew that the boasted 
military strength of Mehemet Ali was a mere impos- 
ture, and that though his troops might defeat the Turks, 
they would crumple up like paper when opposed to 
Europeans. He knew also that, even if Thiers meant 
to go to war, the King had too much sense, and that 
Guizot, then French minister in London, might be relied 
upon to thwart the extravagances of his truculent little 
rival. " Thiers will probably at first swagger," he wrote 
to his Jidiis Achates, Sir Henry Bulwer, "... but 
Louis Philippe is not a man to run amuck, especially 
without an adequate motive." It was in vain that Thiers 
tried to impress the Charge d'Affaires by solemn assur- 
ances that le roi est hienylus helliqueux que moi. 

If Thiers [was Palmerston's reply] should again hold out to you 
the language of menace, however indistinctly and vagusly shadowed 



TEE QUADRILATERAL ALLIANCE. 77 

out, pray retort upon him to the full extent of what he may say to you, 
and, with that skill of language which I know you to be a master of, 
convey to him in the most friendly and unoffensive manner possible, 
that if France throws down the gauntlet of war, we shall not refuse 
to pick it up ; and that if she begins a war, she will to a certainty 
lose her ships, colonies, and commerce before she sees the end of it ; 
that her army of Algiers will cease to give her anxiety, and that 
Mehemet Ali will just be chucked into the Nile. 

Events bore out Palmerston's anticipations to the 
letter. When Louis Philippe found that language in 
King Cambyses' vein, formidable preparations at Toulon, 
and plans for effecting a landing in Turkey, and the 
seizure of the Balearic Isles, were met by counter decla- 
rations of equal spirit and a considerable increase of 
the English navy, his prudence got the better of him. 
In October 1840, Thiers was dismissed, Soult was re- 
called to power, and the cautious Guizot undertook 
the Foreign Office. The collapse of Thiers anticipated 
by only a few weeks the collapse of his protege Mehemet 
Ali. Acting with surprising vigour, the allied fleet bom- 
barded Beyrout on September the 16th; on the 26th of 
that month, Commodore Napier took Sidon ; and on the 
3rd of November Acre, the renowned fortress which had 
defied Napoleon, surrendered, after being exposed for 
less than three hours to the guns of the allies. Ibrahim 
Pasha was thereby cut off from Egypt, and had to effect 
an immediate retreat from a position that had become 
utterly untenable. " Napier for ever ! ' wrote Palmer- 
ston to Lord Granville. " Pray try to persuade the King 
and Thiers that they have lost the game and had better 
not make a brawl of it.*' 

The sacrifice of Thiers by his master to the fates that 
wait on failure, undoubtedly smoothed the way to a re- 
conciliation with France, and rendered compromise pos- 
sible without loss of dignity, where it had been impossible 



78 LIFE OF VISCOUNT PALMERSTON. 

before. In the face of threats and armaments, it was out 
of the question for Palmerston to agree to any of Thiers' 
proposed terms, even if they had been admissible in 
themselves, which they were not, unless England wished 
the Levant to become a French lake, and France the dic- 
tator of Europe. But concessions might fairly have 
been made to Guizot; nnd a generous policy, by healing 
the wounded atnour proiire of the French nation, would 
have led in course of time to a complete reconciliation. 
Palmerston, however, declined to move an inch out of his 
way. It was not that he was pufifed up with pride, on 
the contrary, even Greville acknowledges that nothing 
could be more becoming than his bearing in the hour of 
success ; but simply that he hated Louis Philippe, and 
was determined lo pay him out. It is at this point, and 
not before, that personal motives appear to be predo- 
minant in his mind. 

In your letter of the 20th [he wrote to Lord Granville] you say that 
what the French wish is " that the final settlement of the Eastern 
question shall not appear to have been concluded without their con- 
currence." But that is exactly what I now wish should appear. If 
France had joined us in July, and had been party to the coercive 
measures we undertook, we should have been delighted to have had 
her assistance, and she would have come in as an ally and protector 
of the Sultan. But France having then stood aloof, and having since 
that time avowedly taken part with the Pasha, morally though not 
phj'-sically, if she were now to come in and be a party to the final 
settlement, it would not bo as a friend of the Sultan, but as the pro- 
tector of Mehemet Ali ; and of course we should not permit her to 
meddle with the affair in that capacity and with such a view. 

At the same time the question of prestige undoubtedly 
entered to a considerable extent into the Foreign Secre- 
tary's calculations. He felt that France had defied 
England and must be made to eat the leek; he was cruel 
only to be kind, though his kindness took a rather irri- 
tating form. In the same way he felt that Mehemet 



THE QUADRILATERAL ALLIANGE, 79 

Ali could not be allowed to retain Syria, less, perhaps, 
because Syria was of very much importance, than because 
concessions to Mehemet Ali in the midsummer madness 
of his triumph w^ould inevitably pave the way to fresh 
aggressions and impertinences. 

What Guizot had desired was that the Quadruple 
Alliance should be dissolved as a preliminary to peace. 
Palmerston, however, was determined that France should 
be kept out in the cold until Mehemet Ali had made 
his humble submission to the Sultan, and had received 
in return the hereditnry Pashalic of Egypt on terras 
which emphasized the suzerainty of the Porte in the 
most unmistakable manner. B aving thus guarded against 
the possibility of Egypt becoming a dependency of 
France, Palmerston carried; out, by a Convention con- 
cluded at London on July 13th, 1841, the second part 
of his programme. Turkey was saved from the clutches 
of Kussia, and the treaty of Unkiar Skelessi reduced to 
■waste paper, by a clause which closed the Dardanelles 
and the Bosphorus to the ships of war of all Powers. 

When the Melbourne Ministry, which had only 
tottered through the last few sessions on sufferance, 
finally fell in August 1841, Palmerston, though with- 
out any following in Parliament, and without much in- 
fluence in the country, had raised the prestige of England 
throughout Europe to a height which it had not occu- 
pied since Waterloo. He had created Belgium, saved 
Portugal and Spain from absolutism, rescued Turkey 
from Russia, and the highway to India from France. He 
had in fact reached the zenith of his career as Foreign 
Minister, and Canning, though far greater in his concep- 
tions, had been completely outdone by his disciple in 
performances. The happy marriage to which allusion 
has already been made, had completed Palmerston's good 



80 LIFE OF VISCOUNT FALMFUSTON. 

fortune. Lord Melbourne's sister, Lady Cowper, bad 
long been acknowledged as one of the leaders of the 
fashionable world. With her friends Lady Tankerville 
and Lady Willougby she made up a triad of great im- 
portance in society. During the remainder of his 
life, her charms, talents, and enthusiasm were, as even 
the coldly critical pages of Greville witness, by no 
means the least important of her husband^s sources of 
strength. In an obituary notice of her by Mr. Hay- 
ward, to the fidelity of which Lord Shaftesbury her son- 
in-law, Mr. Cowper (the present Lord Mount-Temple) 
her SOU;, and Mrs. Norton, all give evidence, it was said 
that — ** to place her husband a'nd keep him in what she 
thought his proper position; to make people see him as 
she saw him ; to bring lukewarm friends, carping rivals, 
or exasperated enemies wit'nin the genial atmosphere of 
his conversation; to tone down opposition and conciliate 
support — this was henceforth the fixed purpose and 
master passion of her life. . . . The attraction of Lady 
Palmerston's salo7i at its commencement was the mixed, 
yet select and refined, character of the assemblage, the 
result of that exquisite tact and high-breeding which 
secured her the full benefits of exclusiveness without its 
drawbacks. The diplomatic corps eagerly congregated 
at the house of the Secretary for Foreign Affairs. So 
did the politicians ; the leading members of the fine 
world were her habitual associates, and the grand dif- 
ficulty of her self-appointed task lay in recruiting from 
among the rising celebrities of public life, fashion or 
literature. . . . The services of the great lady to the 
great statesman extended far beyond the creation of a 
salon. What superficial drawers mistook for indiscre- 
tion was eminently useful to him. She always understood 
full well what she was telling, to whom she was telling 



THE QUADBILATEBAL ALLIANCE. 81 

it, when and where it should he repeated, and whether 
the repetition would do harm or good. Instead of the 
secret that was betrayed^ it was the feeler that was put 
forth ; and no one ever knew from or through Lady 
Palmerston what Lord Palmerston did not wish to be 
known." 

If the evidence of contemporaries is to be believed, 
this accomplished lady was ready on occasion to serve 
her husband by very vigorous action. Greville records 
an occasion on which Lord Brougham was compelled 
by her indignant remonstrances to convert what would 
have been a formidable attack on the management of 
foreign affairs into a mere demonstration ; and Count 
Vitzthum tells us of her relentless ostracism of Liberal 
members who spoke or voted against Lord Palmerston. 
She could also crush with an epigram ; thus — "I can 
never forgive Nineveh for having discovered Layard." 
Of the English stateswomen of the past generation she 
was by far the most able. 



82 LIFE OF VISCOUNT PALMFBSTON. 



CHAPTER V. 

ABERDEEN AT THE FOREIGN OFFICE. 

1841-1846. 

Lord Palmerston and the Smaller Powers — Lord Aberdeen — The 
Chinese Wax- — Policy of the Government — Treaty of 1842 — Dis- 
putes with the United States — The Boundary Question — The 
Greely and McLeod affairs — Right of Search — The Ashburton 
Mission — Lord Aberdeen and France — Palmerston and Home 
Affairs — The crisis of 1845 — His visit to Paris. 

Though Palmerston's administration of foreign affairs 
during the Grey and Melbourne Governments had been 
distinctly inspiring and eminently successful, it left very 
bitter recollections behind it in the hearts of many 
continental nations. Even when the Foreign Secretary 
was in the right, he had sometimes a wrong way of show- 
ing it ; and the *' swagger and bully " of which he was so 
fond of accusing the French Ministers was frequently to 
be found in his own treatment of the minor States of 
Europe. For instance, in 1838, a paltry dispute about 
a sulphur monopoly granted by the Government of the 
Two Sicilies to a French company was terminated by 
naval hostilities and the capture of Neapolitan vessels 
by the ]Mediterranean fleet. *' I dined with liady Hol- 
land on Sunday," writes Greville in January 1842, 



ABERDEEN AT THE FOREIGN OFFICE. 83 

** and had a talk with Dedel (the Dutch Ambassador), 
who said that Palmerston had contrived to alienate 
all nations from us by his insolence and violence, so 
that we had not now a friend in the world, while from 
the vast complication of our interests and affairs we 
were exposed to perpetual danger." Of course a Dutch- 
man would hardly be an impartial witness in this 
instance, but the statement probably (jontains a modicum 
of truth. 

Greville consoled himself with the reflection that 
" Aberdeen was doing well, avoiding Palmerston's im- 
pertinence of manner and preserving his energy as to 
matter " ; and certainly the Conservative Foreign Secre- 
tary was an adept at the soft answer which turneth away 
wrath without being an expression of pusillanimity. In 
the course of one of his philippics against Sir Kobert 
Peel's Government, Lord Palmerston said that since 
they had come into office they had been " living on (the 
Whig) leavings. They have been subsisting on the 
broken victuals which they found upon our table. They 
are like a band of men who have made a forcible 
entrance into a dwelling, and who sit down and carouse 
upon the provisions they found in the larder." Now 
two of Palmerston^s *' leavings " were a war with 
China and a most complicated dispute with the United 
States, and Lord Aberdeen would probably have gladly 
dispensed with both of them. 

The Chinese war, though perhaps unavoidable, was 
but little calculated to provoke enthusiasm, inasmuch 
as it was an '* opium " war. The trade in that article 
of commerce had been expressly declared by the Ver- 
milion Pencil to be contraband ; but it had been 
openly carried on for years without the smallest objec- 
tion on the part of the Mandarins, until in 1837 the 

6 * 



84 LIFE OF VISCOUNT PALMFBSTON. 

Chinese Commissioner Lin was sent to Canton with 
orders from the Emperor to stop it entirely. Now the 
attitude of the English Government towards the trade 
had heen one of benevolent neutrality. It had been 
sanctioned by a Committee of the House of Com- 
mons, and it formed a valuable source of revenue to 
India. It was, therefore, allowed to continue, but our 
superintendents of trade were given to understand that 
they must on no account mix themselves up with the 
opium traders. This position was emphasized in a 
memorandum of the Duke of Wellington, written in 
March 1835 ; in the instructions taken out by Captain 
Elliot on his appointment as Superintendent ; and in new 
instructions sent to him by Lord Palmerston in June 
1838. In the last he was told that ** with regard to the 
smuggling in opium . . . Her Majesty's Government 
could not interfere for the purpose of enabling British 
subjects to violate the laws of the country with which 
they trade.'' It is true that Palmerston afterwards 
changed his ground, and, in a debate raised by Sir James 
Graham in 1840, appeared to maintain that the opium 
traffic was justifiable because the objections of the 
Celestial authorities to it were not sincere. Opium, he 
pointed out, was freely grown in China, and the ques- 
tion with the Mandarins was really "an exportation of 
bullion question, an agricultural protection question " ; 
that is, they did not wish that silver should leave the 
country in payment for opium, and did wish to encourage 
Chinese poppy-growing. But so flimsy an excuse was 
probably a mere ad ccqitandum argument advanced 
during the stress of discussion. The real case for 
Government was that they could not, if they would, 
suppress the traffic. As far as every country except 
China was concerned, opium was a perfectly legitimate 



ABJEEDEEN AT THE FOREIGN OFFICE. 85 

article of trade, and therefore could not be suppressed 
in the Indian harbours; vv^hile it was an important 
source of revenue which could not be suddenly cut oflP. 
If they had established courts in Canton with power of 
expelling Englishmen who were detected in smuggling 
the drug, the only result would have been that the trade 
would have sought other ports along the coasts of 
China, and that a shriek of indignation against Govern- 
ment interference would have been raised throughout 
India and England. In short, it was the business of 
the Chinese to carry out their own laws by keeping up 
an effective set of custom-house officials, and the Bri- 
tish Government might fairly wash their hands of the 
whole question. 

It is clear that as far as the British Government was 
concerned there was no attempt to force the trade upon 
the Chinese, and Captain Elliot at Canton had done his 
best to discountenance it. Circumstances changed when 
Lin ordered the merchants to deliver up the drug that it 
might be destroyed, and proceeded to enforce his order 
by blockading them in Canton with every sort of vio- 
lence. Then Captain Elliot felt bound to identify him- 
self with the trade, "on the principle that these violent 
compulsory matters were utterly unjust j^er se." He per- 
suaded the merchants to surrender the opium into his own 
hands before handing it over to the Chinese, and gave 
them bonds on the British Government for its value. 
Though the position he had taken up was apparently 
inconsistent with his instructions, it is absurd to blame 
him for not having left his fellow-countrymen to the 
mercy of Lin ; and his conduct was further justified 
when the Chinese Commissioner, having destroyed the 
opium, refused to raise the blockade unless Elliot 
would promise to enter into an agreement by which all 



86 LIFE OF VISCOUNT PALMERSTON. 

smuggling vessels were for the future to be confiscated 
to the Celestial Government and their crews condemned 
to death. It was felt at home that, even if Elliot had 
made mistakes, he had tried to do his duty, and must 
be supported at all hazards. That was the view, not 
only of Palmerston, but of the great Duke, who, when 
Lord Stanhope brought on a debate in the House of 
Lords, threw him over and asserted the justice of the 
quarrel. His followers were annoyed to the last degree. 
" I know that," said he to Greville, " and I don't care 
one damn. T was afraid Lord Stanhope would have a 
majority, and I have no time not to do what is right." 

The opium war, though attacked in both Houses of 
Parliament, was on the whole popular with the nation. 
Palmerston and his colleagues, however, did not reap 
much benefit from it. The operations at the outset 
were not particularly successful. The island of Chusan 
was occupied, but proved a hot-bed of fever, in which 
one man out of every four died, and more than one-half 
the survivors were invalided. The resistance of the 
Chinese was so feeble that little glory was to be reaped 
from the bulletins of victory, while the obstinacy of the 
Emperor rendered negotiations unavailing until after the 
downfall of the Whigs. It was left to Elliot's successor. 
Sir Henry Pottinger, to put a stop to the slaughter of 
the unfortunate Chinese by a treaty concluded in 1842, 
by which Hongkong was ceded to England in perpetuity, 
five ports were thrown open to British traders, and 
consuls established in them, and an indemnity of nearly 
four millions and a half sterling agreed upon, in addi- 
tion to one million and a quarter extracted from Canton 
by way of ransonj. Though the slaughter of the un- 
fortunate Chinese was to be deplored, Lord Palmerston 
was in all probability only expressing public opinion 



ABEEDEEN AT THE FOREIGN OFFICE. 87 

when in one of his letters he rejoiced at the " exemplary 
good licking" which had been inflicted on the Celes- 
tials. 

The quarrel between England and the United States 
bequeathed by Lord Palmerston to Lord Aberdeen was 
of a more serious nature than a little war in which the 
enemy frequently saved our soldiers the necessity of 
killing him by putting an end to his own existence. 
When the Conservatives came into office the two coun- 
tries were engaged in a diplomatic controversy, con- 
ducted on both sides with much acrimony, and having 
little prospect of termination. One of the subjects at 
issue was connected with the war of American inde- 
pendence. After the conclusion of the war, the treaty 
of 1783 had defined the boundary between the States 
and Canada. But it had been drawn up on defective 
information, and hence left unsettled almost as many 
points as it had determined. For instance, the river 
St. Croix was to be the dividing line on the Atlantic 
coast. There were about a dozen rivers called St. 
Croix. It was supposed that a ridge of hills ran be- 
tween the St. Croix and the St. Lawrence ; there 
was no such ridge. A Commission solved the St. 
Croix question ; the other points in dispute were 
referred to the King of the Netherlands, who, in 1831, 
made an award which Lord Palmerston agreed to accept 
but which was rejected by the Senate of the United States. 
Subsequent attempts at a compromise, among which 
was a characteristic proposal of Palmerston's that the 
disputed territory should be divided into halves between 
Canada and the States, came to nothing; and the dispute 
continued to smoulder. It is extremely difficult to form 
any decided opinion on the relative merits of the rival 
views advanced, but as neither party was contending for 



88 LIFE OF . VISCO UNT FALMEBSTON, 

any very valuable natural frontiers, Lord Palmerston 
may, perhaps, have been too much inclined to stand out 
about trifles. 

Towards the end of the Whig Ministry the question, 
which had chiefly been one of academic importance, 
began to have practical bearings. In 1837, Ebenezer 
Greely, an official of the State of Maine, who was 
engaged in making a census, was arrested by the autho- 
rities of New Brunswick, on the ground that he was 
conducting his operations on the wrong side of the 
frontier. Palmerston thought the Canadians in the 
right, and Greely remained in prison, until the Governor 
of New Brunswick set him free out of gratitude for the 
strict observance of neutrality by Maine during the Cana- 
dian rebellion. Far more serious than the arrest of Greely 
was the McLeod aff'air. In 1840 a Canadian named 
McLeod, while on a visit to the State of New York, boasted 
that he had taken part in the burning of the Caroline^ 
a disreputable little American vessel which had conveyed 
stores during the Canadian rebellion to a promiscuous 
collection of border rufiians, who had established them- 
selves on Navy Island in the Niagara river, and made 
common cause with the rebels. The act of destruction, 
which was directed by a British officer. Colonel McNab, 
was in itself praiseworthy. Unfortunately, as the 
destruction of the CarolUie took place in American 
waters, and several American citizens were killed during 
the affray, it provoked considerable and not unnatural 
indignation in the United States, of which Palmerston 
took no notice whatever. McLeod, the indiscreet, was 
promptly seized by the authorities of New York, thrown 
into prison, and charged with murder. 

Lord Palmerston at once rushed to his rescue with more 
than his usual impetuosity. " The British nation," he 



ABUBDEEN AT THE FOBEIGN OFFICE, 89 

wrote forthwith to Mr. Fox, our Minister at Washington, 
"will never permit a British subject to be dealt with 
as the people of New York propose to deal with McLeod 
without taking a signal vengeance upon the offenders. 
McLeod^s execution would produce war, war immediate 
and frightful in its character, because it would be a war 
of retaliation and vengeance."" He also instructed Mr. 
Fox to demand, in the name of the British Govern- 
ment, the immediate release of Alexander McLeod, who 
had been engaged in *' a transaction of a public chnracter 
... an act of public duty," for which no Englishman 
could be made " personally and individually answerable 
to the laws of any foreign States." Unfortunately, 
this was the first occasion on which Palmerston, in spite 
of American remonstrances, had taken any notice what- 
ever of the destruction of the Ca7^oli?ie ; and Mr. Daniel 
Webster, the American Secretary of State, did not fail 
to point out the omission in his very able reply. He 
also scored a point off Palmerston, who had styled the 
crew of the Caroline '' American pirates," by recalling 
the Carlist war and the equipment of the Spanish 
Legion, "for the avowed purpose," he added, rather in- 
exactly, ** of aiding a rebellion against a nation with 
which England was at peace. . . . And yet it has not 
been imagined that England has at any time allowed 
her subjects to turn pirates." In fact, Palmerston 
found in Daniel Webster an opponent worthy of his 
steel. The American Secretary of State declared that 
the United States Government could not stop the legal 
proceedings begun against McLeod by the State of New 
York, and that the trial must take place. At the same 
time, while returning a stout answer to Palmerston's 
somewhat peremptory demands, he took care that 
McLeod should be well represented by counsel, and 



90 LIFE OF VISCOUNT FALMEESTON, 

thus succeeded in procuring his acquittal. The gnme 
had been well contested, but on the whole Webster 
must be allowed to have won the greater number of 
tricks. 

There was a third subject of dispute between England 
and America at this time which Palmerston bad far 
more closely at heart than the boundary or the fate of 
McLeod. We have mentioned his noble efforts for the 
suppression of the slave-trade. They were continuous 
and energetic ; and when in 1841 he succeeded in per- 
suading the five Powers, Great Britian, France, Au»itria, 
Prussia, and Russia, to sign a treaty by which they 
allowed one another a mutual right of search, they 
seemed to have been crowned with considerable success. 
Guizot's refusal to ratify the treaty was considered by 
Palmerston — and rightly — to be a mere piece of spite, a 
counterstroke to the Quadrilateral Alliance; and far more 
serious was the refusal of the United States to be a party 
to it at all. The result was of course that slavers 
hoisted the American flag, and so escaped unscathed. 
The British tar, however, was equal to the emergency ; 
it was true he might not search an American vessel, but 
surely, he contended, he mis^ht detain a vessel under an 
American flag to see if she really was what she pro- 
fessed to be. These proceedings of course produced 
more diplomatic correspondence of an angry character. 
Here Palmerston had decidedly the better of the argu- 
ment : — 

What would be the consequence [he wrote] if a vessel engaged in the 
slave trade could protect herself from search by merely hoisting a United 
States flag? Why, it is plain that in such case every slave-trading 
pirate, whether Spanish, Portuguese, or Brazilian, or English, or French, 
or of whatever nation he might be, would immediately sail under the 
colours of the United States ; every criminal could do that, though ho 
could not procure genuine American papers; and thus all the treaties 



ABERDEEN AT THE FOREIGN OFFIGE. 91 

concluded among the Christian Powers for the suppression of slave 
trade could be rendered a dead letter; even the laws of England 
might be set aside by her own subjects, and the slave traders would 
be invested with complete impunity. 

Everything seemed to point to a prolonged alienation 
between England and the United States, if not to an 
absolute rupture. 

It was immediately after the hurling of this Palmer- 
stonian thunderbolt that Lord Aberdeen assumed the con- 
trol of our foreign relations. Under his serener influence, 
and through the exertions of Lord Ash burton, who was 
sent by the Peel Ministry on a special mission of conci- 
liation to Washington, compromises were effected on the 
three points under dispute which were perhaps as satis- 
factory as compromises can ever be. The Caroline- 
McLeod affair was settled by an apology for the viola- 
tion of American waters, though Lord Ash burton 
maintained that the burning of the vessel was in itself 
justifiable. With regard to the slave-trade, the United 
States, while declining to submit their ships to search, 
agreed to maintain an adequate squadron on the African 
coast for its suppression. The boundary question was 
far more difficult to handle, and though the utmost mo- 
deration and good sense was brought to bear upon it by- 
Webster and Lord Ashburton, their final definition came 
in for a good deal of abuse from the '* no-surrender '^ 
party on both sides of the Atlantic. 

Palmerston, who was a very active member of the 
Opposition, set himself to work to holloa on the hounds. 
The treaty of Lord Ashburton, " that half-Yankee," as 
he calls him in one of his letters — he had married an 
American lady — was denounced as weak retreat before 
encroachment; and the member for Tiverton expressed 
a fear lest *' the system of purchasing temporary secu- 



92 LIFE OF VISCOUNT PALMEBSTON, 

rity by lasting sacrifices, and of placing the interests of 
foreign ministers above those of this country, could ever 
be other than a fatal one to the country, or to the admi- 
nistration which pursue such a course." So sweeping 
were the charges brought against the Aberdeen foreign 
policy by the Morning Chronicle and other Palmer- 
stonian organs, that Lord John Russell, in the name of 
the Whig chiefs, ventured on a remonstrance, but tlie 
only satisfaction that he received was a reply that *' a 
horse sometimes goes the safer for having his head 
given to him." And Greville, wlien he visited him at 
Broadlands in January 1845, found him : — 

Full of vigour and hilarity and overflowing witli diplomatic swagger. 
He said we might hold any language we pleased to France and 
America, and insist on what we thought necessary, without any appre- 
hension that either would go to war, as both knew how vulnerable 
they are, France with her colonies and America with her slaves ; a 
doctrine to which Lord Ashburton by no means subscribes. 

But, of course. Lord Palmerston in private conversation 
and Lord Palmerston in the House of Commons were 
two very different persons. 

On the whole Palmerston's warnings were spoken to 
deaf ears, in spite of the strong confirmation they received 
almost immediately from the bellicose attitude assumed 
by the United States, when Lord Aberdeen, encouraged 
by the successful delimination of the eastern boundary, 
attempted to settle that on the western or Oregon side, 
and had once more to give up a certain amount of 
English pretensions in order to secure the remainder. 
Quite as vigorous were Palmerston's denunciations to his 
friends of the renewal of the entente cordiale with 
France, and the sacrifices made by Lord Aberdeen from 
time to time for its preservation; particularly during 
the somewhat supine acquiescence in the outrages on 



ABERDEEN AT THE FOREIGN OFFICE. 93 

Queen Poinar6 of Tahiti and the missionary Pritchard 
by the French Admireil Thouars, though he was wilh'ng 
to own that ample satisfaction was obtained in the end. 
He also approved of Lord Aberdeen's attempts to pre- 
serve peace when France became embroiled in Morocco, 
and when the appointment of one of Louis Philippe's 
sons, the anti-English Prince de Joinville, to command 
the French squadron in the Mediterranean, seemed to 
portend the occupation of Morocco and possibly war 
with England. But, on the whole, Palmerston's 
opinion of Lord Aberdeen's foreign policy may be 
summed up in his memorable phrase '* antiquated im- 
becility." 

Though he generally addressed himself to foreign 
affairs. Lord Palmerston did not spare the colonial 
or domestic concerns of the Peel administration. The 
speeches that are most to his credit during this 
period are those on the suppression of the slave-trade, 
upon which, because his spirit was really stirred 
within him, he delivered himself with earnestness and 
effect. He was not silent during the debates on the 
Corn Laws, the abolition of which he urged with the 
weight of a free-trader of many years standing. But his 
remarks, though extremely sensible and well chosen, do 
not seem to show any very intimate knowledge of the sub- 
ject ; while his good-natured banter of the Protectionists, 
*' whose songs of triumph had been turned into cries of 
lamentation," has about it little of the permanent inte- 
rest that is attached to Mr. Disraeli's parallel between 
Peel and the Turkish admiral vho " sailed his fleet into 
the enemy's port," or even to the savage personalities of 
Lord George Bentinck at the expense of his former 
leader. Nor did he go to the length of Cobden and 
Bright ; but attempted to steer a middle course, advo« 



94 LIFE OF VISCOUNT PALMEBSTOK 

eating a small fixed duty rather than total abolition. 
It was about this period that Lord Ashley, who was 
Lady Palmerston's son-in-law, began to acquire a re- 
markable influence over his somewhat secular relative. 
Lord Melhourne had commented on the intimacy in 
1841, and hinted that Palmerston might go over to the 
Tories ; and its consequences are to be traced in Pal- 
merston's support of the Factory Bill, and of the curious 
measure for establishing a Protestant Bishopric at Jeru- 
salem. While he was at the Foreign Office, Palmer- 
ston, through the English Minister at the Porte, Lord 
Ponsonby, had greatly contributed to the realisation of 
the latter project, though his frame of mind was not 
altogether satisfactory to its originator, who found that 
his interest was confined to the political and commercial 
side of the question. 

It would appear from the evidence of contemporary 
observers that Piilmerston's speeches on ecclesiastical 
and commercial topics were hardly noticed ; while his 
continued hostility to France and the States was the 
subject of a good deal of comment, and his possible 
return to the Foreign Office of a good deal of appre- 
hension. That prospect seems also to have alarmed 
his nominal friends, the Whigs, quite as much as his 
opponents. There was a decided anti-Palmerstonian 
feeling among the party and at Court, which found 
powerful expression when, on Peel's resignation in 
1845, Lord John Russell attempted to form a govern- 
ment. The Queen was much alarmed, and expressed 
her earnest desire that Palmtrston should take the Colo- 
nial Office ; but Lord John found him determined to be 
the director of Foreign Affairs or no minister at all. 
The present Lord Grey, then better known as Lord 
Howick, was even more adverse to Palmerston than 



ABERDEEN AT THE FOREIGN OFFICE. 95 

her Majesty, and positively declined to be a member 
of the same Cabinet with him. 

I could not [Lord Grey afterwards wrote to Lord Jolin by way of 
explanation] be blind to the notorious fact that, justly ^r unjustly, 
both fi-iends and opponents regarded with considerable apprehension 
the prospect of his return to the Foreign Office, and the existence of 
such a feeling was, in my mind, no slight objection to the appointment. 
But, further, when he formerly held this ofiBce, events occurred which 
were by no means yet forgotten, which have created feelings of appa- 
rent alienation between him and some of the chief statesmen and diplo- 
matists of foreign countries, more especially of France. 

It is well known that Lord John, bewildered by the 
difficulties of reconciling conflicting claims, and an- 
noyed at the impossibility of extracting from Peel any 
specific pledges of support, seized Lord Grey's re- 
fusal to serve with Palmerston as a pretext for aban- 
doning the attempt to form a ministry, and the Whigs 
were condemned to a further period of opposition. 

When, however, Peel was finally overthrown in the 
following year, there was no opposition to Palmerston's 
return to the Foreign Office for the third time. Accor- 
ding to Greville, Lord John undertook to control him, 
and to secure the Cabinet against the consequences of 
his imprudence. It is also to be remarked that the 
settlement of the Oregon boundary question had re- 
moved all danger of a rupture with the United States, 
wliile Palmerston had shortly before taken the prudent 
course of paying a visit of reconciliation to Paris, which 
to all appearance was a complete success. While at Paris 
he seized the opportunity of an abortive attempt on 
the life of Louis Philippe to hold out the olive branch 
in the shape of a letter of congratulation, the general 
effect of which upon French public opinion was all that 
could be desired. 



96 ilFjG OF VISCOUNT PALMEESTON, 



CHAPTER YI. 

THE SPANISH MARRIAGES. 

1846. 

Earlier stages of the Begotiations — ^Louis Philippe's first condition — 
The agreement of Eu — The Coburg candidate — Guizot's change 
of attitude — Lord Palmerston's despatch — Its results — Announce • 
ment of the marriages — Palmerston's efforts to postpone them. 

Though Lord Palmerston bad apparently won all hearts 
during his visit to Paris, it soon appeared that he had 
only effected a momentary reconciliation with Louis 
Philippe and Guizot. This was but natural. They could 
hardly fail to fear and suspect the statesman who had so 
completely ruined their Egyptian policy in the past ; and 
who was pretty sure in the future to treat certain matri- 
monial schemes which they were pushing forward in 
Spain, in a very different spirit to that in which they had 
been regarded by the pacific Aberdeen. It is unneces- 
sary to discuss at any length the earlier stages of the 
Spanish marriages. The first conclusion arrived at was 
this : — When the Regent Christina proposed that her 
daughter Isabella should marry a French prince, Louie 
Philippe declined the proposal from fear of the jealousy 



THE SPANISH MAEMIAGES. 97 

of England ; but at the same time insisted that the 
choice of the Queen of Spain must exclude a member of 
the reigning families of Europe, and must be confined 
to the Spanish Bourbons. The Bourbon candidates 
ultimately resolved themselves into Isabella's qou- 
sins, the sons of her uncle Don Francisco de Paula. 
But both of them were disliked by Christina, especially 
the younger, Enrique, who had taken part in Progressist 
intrigues, and had been sent into exile. The elder 
brother, Francisco, Duke of Cadiz, was politically less 
objectionable ; but he was notoriously effeminate, accor- 
ding to Christina, ** not a man," and Palmerston after- 
wards termed him ** an absolute and Absolutist fool." 
Isabella was known to contemplate the idea of marry- 
ing him with the utmost repugnance. Aberdeen thought 
that Don Enrique was the less objectionable of the 
two; but he informed the Spanish ambassador that "if 
it should be found that no descendant of Philip V. can 
safely be chosen ... it would be no cause of displea- 
sure to Great Britain if they (the Spanish Government) 
were to select a prince from some other family."*' 

Lord Aberdeen's conduct, if somewhat unnecessarily 
yielding, was, at any rate, in the highest degree straight- 
forward, and so far the conduct of Guizot and his 
master had been quite above-board. But in 1845 it 
appeared that, although the French Court had no wish 
for a marriage between the Queen of Spain and one of 
the Orleanist princes, they were most anxious to secure 
her sister and heiress for Louis Philippe's youngest 
son the Due de Montpensier. This step looked very 
much like an attempt to secure the Spanish throne par 
un detour."^ But Guizot denied emphatically that there 

* Guizot's expression to M. Bresson, the French Minister at 
Madrid. 

7 



98 LIFE OF VISCOUNT PAL3IEBST0N, 

was any hidden end in view ; and on the occasion of the 
Qaeen's visit to Louis Philippe at Eu in September of 
that year, he voluntarily promised Aberdeen that " the 
Montpensier match should not be proceeded with until 
it was no longer a political question, which would be 
when the Queen was married and had children/* 

How far Louis Philippe and his Minister would 
have kept faith with Aberdeen if the eligible Bour- 
bon had been forthcoming for Isabella, it is unneces- 
sary to enquire. At the same time, it is only just 
to say that they gave some indication to the English 
minister of their contemplated volte-face. On thp 
27th of February, 1846, a memorandum was written 
by Guizot to be shown to Aberdeen, in which it 
was declared that if the marriage either of the Queen 
or of the Infanta to a prince who was not a de- 
scendant of Philip V. became *' probable and immi- 
nent," France would consider herself free from her eti- 
gagements, and at liberty to demand the hand of the 
Queen or of the Infanta for the Due de Montpensier. 
Upon this memorandum Guizot laid considerable stress 
when afterwards accused of underhand conduct. But 
it should be observed that the language was studiously 
vague, France being left sole judge of the ** probability 
and imminence," and that the memorandum was only 
read to Aberdeen. No copy of the document was left 
with him, and so little importance did he attach to it, 
that he said nothing about it to Mr. Bulwer, our mini- 
ster at Madrid, or to his own successor, Lord Palmer- 
ston. Now, the candidate other than a Bourbon 
alluded to in the memorandum was Prince Leopold of 
Saxe-Coburg. Louis Philippe affected to be greatly 
afraid of him on account of his family connections ; 
his brother was King of Portugal, and his cousin Prince 



THE SPANISH MABBIAGUS. 99 

Consort of England. Aberdeen, however, did his very 
utmost to calm his susceptibilities on the point. He 
actually acquainted Guizot with the fact that Christina, 
not for the first time, was trying to secure Prince Leo- 
pold for her daughter, and had even made a formal offer 
to Leopold's father through Mr. Bulwer; and he sent the 
most ample assurance to Guizot that the English Court 
would give no support to the candidature. 

It appears incredible that Louis Philippe can ever 
have considered the Coburg marriage as really *' immi- 
nent," and it is difficult to see that any real excuse can 
be made for the complete change of attitude adopted by 
the King and Minister almost simultaneously with the 
formation of Lord John Russell's Ministry. The con- 
dition that the Montpensier marriage should not take 
place until Isabella had had children was allowed to 
drop out of sight altogether, and it was determined that 
the luckless Queen should marry the cretin Don Fran- 
cisco. It is true that the turpitude of the two conspi- 
rators was not as black as it has sometimes been 
represented. Francisco was practically the only 
Bourbon left, as far as they were concerned, his brother 
being intimately connected with the anti-French party ; 
and the fact that for many months they had actively 
supported another candidature, Count Trapani, is incon- 
sistent with the charge commonly brought against them, 
that their idea was to force the Queen to marry an in- 
competent husband so as to place Montpensier on the 
throne par un detour. Towards the English Govern- 
ment, however, they acted with the grossest treachery. 
When Bresson, the French Minister at Madrid, acting 
on his own responsibility, obtained on the 12Lh of July 
Christina's consent to the Cadiz alliance on condition 
that the Infanta should simultaneously marry the Duo 

7 * 



100 LIFE OF VISCOUNT PALMEBSTOJST, 

de Montpensier, be was rebuked, and apparently dis- 
avowed, but only on the ground of simultaneUe* As 
Guizot subsequently pointed out to his master, Chris- 
tina would only accept Cadiz with Montpensier for a 
pendant; and to ensure success, it must be understood 
that as soon as one marriage was completed, the second 
must be discussed and arranged. 

It is clear, then, that Louis Philippe and Guizot had 
resolved to depart from the agreement of Eu before they 
were acquainted with the " astonishing and detestable 
despatch " of Lord Palmerston, which they afterwards 
alleged as the cause of their change of plan and the 
simultaneous celebration of the Cadiz and Montpensier 
marriages, with terrible consequences to the unhappy 
Isabella and still more unhappy Spain. That despatch 
was dated July 18th, 1846, and explained to Mr. Bulwer 
the views of the new Government on the double ques- 
tion of the marriage of the Queen and the political 
condition of Spain. 

In regard tc the first [he wrote], I have not at present any instruc- 
tions to give you in addition to those which you have received from 
my predecessor in office. The choice of a husband for the Queen of 
an independent country is obviously a matter in w^hich the Govern- 
ments of other countries are not entitled to interfere unless there 
should be a probability that the choice would fall upon some prince 

. . directly belonging to the reigning family of some foreign state. 
But there is no person of this description among those who are 
named as candidates for the Queen of Spain ; those candidates being 
reduced to three, namely, the Prince Leopold of Saxe-Coburg, and 
the two sons of Don Francisco de Paula. ... As between the three 
candidates above mentioned, Her Majesty's Government have only to 
express their sincere wish that the choice may fall upon the one who 

* This point appears to be overlooked by Mr. Spencer Walpole 
in his otherwise well-considered defence of Louis Philippe and 
Guizot, but it comes out very clearly in the letters between the 
two pubUshed after 1848 in the Revue Retrospective. 



TEE SPANISH MARRIAGES. 101 

may be most likely to secure the happiness of the Queen and to pro- 
mote the welfare of the nation. 

The second part of the despatch was a vigorous 
onslaught on the Spanish Government in true Pahner- 
stonian style; it was one of ahsolutism, force, and 
tyranny, a mockery of constiiuLionalism, and so forth, 
Bulvver, however, was told in conclusion that 

Her Majesty's Government are so sensible of the inconvenience of 
interfering, even by friendly advice, in the internal affairs of indepen- 
dent States, that I have to abstain from giving you instructions to 
make any representations "whatever to the Spanish Minister on these 
matters ; but though you will, of course, take care to express on no 
occasion on these subjects sentiments different from those which I 
have thus explained to you, and although you will be careful not to 
express these sentiments in any manner, or upon any other occasion, 
so as to be likely to create increase, or encoiirage discontent, yet 
you need not conceal from any of those persons who may have the 
power of remedying the existing evils, the fact that such opinions are 
entertained by the British Government. 

Of this despatch, Palmerston, who seems to have 
gathered from Lord Aberdeen no idea that the marriage 
question was at all serious, rather imprudently gave a 
copy to Jarnac, the French Ambassador, and at once set 
the French and Spanish Courts ablaze. Christina saw 
In it a design to effect a revolution in Spain which 
would overthrow the Moderado Ministry, and sur- 
round her with the leaders of the Progressist party, 
Espartero, Olozaga, and the rest, who had already 
driven her from Madrid, and would probably try 
to expel her again. There can be no doubt also that 
Louis Philippe and G-uizot were seriously alarmed for 
the moment ; the language of the latter to Greville on 
the occasion of his visit to Paris proves that real 
alarm was mingled with his hypocrisy. From the day 
of Palmerston's arrival at the Foreign Office they 



102 LIFE OF VISGOUlsT PALMEBSTON. 

had been shaking in their shoes, and it was in vain 
that the Minister attempted to keep up the King's 
spirits by assurances that " les prosiiects du cabinet 
Whig sont bien gloomyy Themselves conspirators 
against the agreement of Eu, they were inclined to sus- 
pect a countermine at every turn. It was certainly 
rather rash of Palmerston to mention the Coburg prince 
as if his chances were equal to those of the sons of Don 
Francisco de Paula, and it gave Guizot a certain handle 
for his contention that Palmerston intended to depart 
from the engagement with Aberdeen. Vourquoi nom- 
mer le Cohiiry T' asked Madame de Lieven o( Greville 
after all was over ; and to confirm Guizot's suspicions, 
Jarnac's letter arrived at Paris about the same time as a 
mission from Christina, the object of which was to effect 
a retreat from the Cadiz arrangement, and obtain for 
Spain the French King's permission to choose a king 
for herself. At the same time the mere mention of the 
Coburg marriage could not be said, even by the most 
extreme alarmist, to render it " imminent," and a 
categorical demand for an explanation would have 
immediately dissolved his fears. As Queen Victoria 
pointed out in the crushing rebuke — a *'twister," 
her Foreign Secretary admiringly called it — which she 
afterwards addressed to the French Court through the 
Queen of the Belgians, Lord Palmerston mentioned 
Leopold among the candidates merely as a fact kwown 
to Europe ; and he referred Bulwer to the last instruc- 
tions which he had received from Lord Aberdeen : — 



In "which, in terms most explicit and most positive, he asserts the in- 
controvertible right of the Queen of Spain to marry what prince she 
pleases, even although he should not be a descendant of Philip V., 
adding, at the same time, what I give in his own words: "that we 
ventured, although without any English candidate or English pre- 



THE SPANISH MABBIAGES. 103 

ference, to point out Don Enrique as the prince who appeared to us 
the most eligible, because the most likely to prove acceptable to the 
people of Spain." 

Greville's conclusion was that the mischief had arisen 
from Palmerston being careless and thoughtless, Guizot 
suspicious and alarmed. The Foreign Secretary was cer- 
tainly rather careless, and perhaps not sufficiently awake 
to the importance of the Spanish marriage question, but 
he was also overwhelmed with business on entering into 
office. But the month's delay which occurred between 
the general demand on the part of Guizot for an ex- 
position of the English policy and Palmerston's reply 
was undoubtedly most unfortunate, and tended to give 
further colour to his suspicions. There can be no 
doubt that they were quite baseless as far as the 
Coburg marriage was concerned. Palmerston's only 
reason for advocating that alliance was, as he cha- 
racteristically wrote to Bulwer, that " the English 
Government would see with pleasure a good cross in- 
troduced into the family of Spain ;" on the whole he 
thought, considering the average of intellect in his 
father, brother, and sister, that the chances were against 
Leopold being anything remarkable. The prince whom 
he really wished to see on the throne of Spain was En- 
rique, of whose abilities he seems to have formed a very 
exaggerated opinion, and who was very acceptable on 
account of his Progressist leanings. 

Upon the best of consideration we can give to the matter [he wrote 
to Bulwer] and according to the information which we hitherto 
possess, we think it best for all parties concerned that Enrique should 
marry the Queen, and that Coburg should marry the Infanta ; and 
that is the arrangement we wish you to try for. 

Upon the question of the Montpensier marriage, 
however, even when safeguarded by the conditions 



104 LIFE OF VISCOUNT PALMEB8T0N. 

into which Guizot had voluntarily entered at En, it 
appeared that Palmerston, instead of being neutral like 
Aberdeen, was most emphatically hostile. 

The lang-uag^e I hold to Janiac [he tells Bulwer] Is purposely 
general and applicable to Montpensier's mai-riage with the Infanta as 
■well as with the Queen. I tell him that it is a great and paramount 
object with us that Spain should be independent, and that her policy- 
should be founded upon Spanish and not upon French considerations ; 
so that if ever we should have the misfoi-tune of finding ourselves 
engaged in war with France, we should not merely on that account, 
and without any separate quarrel with Spain, find ourselves involved 
in war with Spain also. That this independence of Spain would be 
endangered, if not destroyed, by the marriage of a French prince into 
the royal family of Spain ; and that as, on the one hand, France 
would be entitled to object to such a marriage being contracted by an 
English prince, so England is entitled to object to such a marriage 
being contracted by a French one. That such an objection on our 
part may seem uncourteous, and may be displeasing ; but that the 
friendships of States and Governments must be founded upon natui-al 
interest, and not upon personal likings. 

After this decided harangue, it was absurd for Guizot 
to complain, as he subsequently did, that he had been 
kept in ignorance of the strong objections ©f the Eng- 
lish Government to the Monlpensier marriage. His 
game, as time went on, evidently was to use the Coburg 
scare as an excuse for hastening on the simultaneous 
marriages of Cadiz to the Queen, and Montpensier to 
the Infanta coiite que coute. Indeed, his own panic does 
not seem to have lasted more than three or four days; 
for as early as July 31st he had come to the conclusion 
that neither the English Cabinet nor Palmerston 
himself had any serious projects for a Coburg, and in 
the following month the unconditional refusal of the 
Coburg family to accept Christina's proposal was 
actually sent to Madrid. While Palmerston was playing 
for the Enrique and Coburg combination with his cards 



THE SPANISH MABBIAGJSS. 105 

on the table, Giiizot, while artfully pretending to follow 
his lead, as far as Enrique was concerned, a choice 
which he mendaciously declared " would be perfectly 
satisfactory to France," was urging Bresson at Madrid 
to bring matters to an issue. Christina's remaining 
scruples were removed by her fears of " the English and 
tlie Revolution," and on the 2nd of September, Jarnac 
announced to Palmerston that the two marriages of the 
Queen to Cadiz and her sister to Montpensier, had 
been arranged on the 28th of August. 

The indignation entertained by the English Court 
and the English Ministry against the pair of tricksters 
who had deliberately broken their word, and that to 
further projects which, under the most favourable con- 
struction, were those of sordid fortune-hunters, was 
expressed without much circumlocution : *'Je ne vous 
parlerui plus d'entente cordiale,'' wrote Palmerston to 
Jarnac, *' parce-que ce qu'on nous annonce par rapport 
aux affaires d'Espagne ne nous prouve que trop claire- 
ment qu'on ne veut plus a Paris ni de cordialite ni 
d'entente." " If this marriage takes place," he wrote 
later on, "it will be the first time that the promises and 
declarations of a French king are not realised."" His 
royal mistress was, as we have seen, quite as out- 
spoken, and vigorously denied Louis Philippe's insinua- 
tion that she looked at these affairs only through the 
medium of Lord Palmerston. Even Metternich was 
disgusted. 

Tell M. Guizot from me [he said] that one does not with impunity 
play little tricks with great countries. He knows I do not think 
much of public opinion, it is not one of my instruments, but it has its 
effect. The English Government have done their best to establish 
Louis Philippe in public opinion. They can withdraw what they 
gave, and I have always said the moment he loses that ho is on the 
verge of a war, and his is not a dynasty that can stand a war. 



106 LIFE OF VISCOUNT PALMEBSTON. 

This stern warning had no effect ; indeed, Guizot had 
gone too far for retreat to be possible. Still less 
efficacious were the makeshifts devised by Palmerston's 
nimble mind to secure the defeat, or, at least, the post- 
ponement of the scheme. In a vigorous protest against 
the marriage he appealed to the treaty of Utrecht, but 
arguments based on what had occurred in the reign of 
Queen Anne naturally appeared to Guizot to be " old 
and strange," and the Duke of Wellington pronounced 
them to be '* damned stuff.'' Equally futile was his 
plan for re-establishing the Salic law against the 
children of the Montpensier marriage. Considering that 
Isabella reigned solely through the abrogation of that 
ordinance, there would have been, as Greville says, 
much levity in re-establishing it against her sister. His 
machinations for a divorce were equally futile. Possibly 
his designs for stirring up an agitation in Spain through 
Bulwer, '' of course avoiding schemes for insurrection,'* 
might have had more effect if time had been allowed 
for their development. Events, however, moved too 
quickly for him ; the marriages were celebrated on the 
lOth of October, and the French claimed the game. It 
remained for Palmerston to show them that it was not 
worth the candle. 



107 



CHAPTER VII. 

YEARS OF REVOLUTION. 

1846-1849. 

Results of the Spanish marriages — The annexation of Cracow — Civil 
war in Portugal — Lord Palmerston's policy — Termination of the 
struggle — The Swiss Sonderbund — Lord Palmerston's despatch 
— Settlement of the dispute — Constitutionalism in Italy — The 
Minto Mission — The fall of Louis Philippe — The Spanish de- 
spatch — Lord Palmers ton and the Provisional Government at 
Paris — Change in his Italian policy — His attitude towards the 
Sardinian Government — Suppression of the Revolution — Palmer- 
ston and Naples — His advice to Austria — The Hungarian 
refugees. 

Though the conclusion of the Spanish marriages was 
followed by no actual rupture between England and 
France, the relations between the two countries were 
cold to the last degree. It was particularly unfortunate 
that at this crisis England should have been represented 
at Paris by Lord Normanby, a very green ambassador, 
as Madame de Lieven said, who made matters worse by 
his social gaucheries, and who entered into unwise rela- 
tions with Thiers, and other leaders of the Opposition. 
Nor did his chief receive with particularly good grace the 
advances of the French ambassador, St. Aulaire. " The 



108 LIFE OF VISCOUNT FALMEB8T0N. 

thing remained," Lord Palmerston said, '* and as long 
as it did remain there was no civility and no procede 
which would permanently alter the state of things be- 
tween England and France." In the end the results of 
the estrangement were far more serious for France than 
for England. The Orleanist dynasty had lost its only 
friend in Europe, and it had been found out. The 
** matrimonial blockade " established by the autocratic 
Powers against the upstart family was only the more 
rigidly enforced on account of the new methods of 
courtship patented by M. Guizot ; and when at last 
Palmerston's continued efforts on behalf of the op- 
pressed of Europe drove the northern Powers to seek 
a common basis of action with the French Court, it 
was too late. An alliance between Austria, Russia, 
Prussia, and France against England was, if Count 
d'Haussonville is to be believed,^ to have been concluded 
in March 1848. But in February the Orleanist dynasty 
succumbed before the combined effects of its previous 
isolation abroad, and the fatuity of the juste milisu 
policy at home ; and Palmerston could have boasted, with 
a considerable amount of truth, that he had driven 
Louis Philippe from the Tuileries. 

The dissolution of the entente cordiaUy which was 
fatal to the junior member of the firm, by no means 
strengthened the position of the other partner. Between 
the Liberalism of the Russell Ministry and the totter- 
ing Conservatism of Metternich a modus vivendi was 
impossible, more especially as the English Foreign 
Secretary continued to pursue what the Austrian 
Chancellor termed the " CEolian policy inaugurated by 

* Histoire de la politique exterieure du Gouvernemcnt Frangais, torn. 
ii. p. 381. It is curious that there is no meution of this agreement in 
the Memoirs of Metternich. 



YEABS OF REVOLUTION. 109 

CnnniTig," by giving vigorous support to continental 
Liberalism. The Austrian Chancellor was not slow 
to retaliate. By the annexation of the free city of 
Cracow, the last remnant of independent Poland, to 
Austria, with the full consent of Prussia and Russia, 
he dealt a counterblow at Constitutionalism which 
was for the moment peculiarly effective, though it 
is inexpedient in the long run for Governments 
whose chief strength is the vis ifiertiiB, to begin 
to tear up treaties. As Palmerston had pointed 
out in the House of Commons at the end of the pre- 
vious session, if the Treaty of Vienna, under which the 
independence of Cracow had been guaranteed, " was not 
good on the Vistula, it might be equally invalid on 
the Rhine and on the Po.*' The immediate effects of 
the annexation, however, were to point the moral that 
while the champions of personal government were ap- 
parently united and determined. Constitutionalism was 
under a cloud. England and France made formal pro- 
tests against the breach of faith on the part of the 
northern Powers; but no regard was paid to them, since 
their separate action only pointed out more clearly than 
ever that there was no possibility of their coming 
together, and that the protests were really addressed, 
not to Vienna, but by way of apology for what 
could not be prevented, to the constituencies at home. 
A second attack on the annexation of Cracow was 
made in the Queen's Speech of January 1847, but 
Palmerston took little by it, as the three Powers made 
a very effective rejoinder by directing their ambassadors 
to stay away from the House of Lords. 

Palmerston bore the reverse with great philosophy. 
"Even if France and England had been on good 
terms," he wrote to Lord Normanby, '* they have no 



110 LIFE OF VISCOUNT PALMEBSTON. 

means of action on the spot in question, and could only 
have prevented the thing by a threat of war, which, 
however, the three Powers would have known we should 
never utter for the sake of Cracow.'^ The temporary 
check, indeed, seems only to have inspired him with new 
funds of confidence, and during the months that pre- 
ceded the cataclysm of 1848, his diplomatic activity 
was phenomenal, even for '* the accursed Palmerston," 
who haunted the pillows of German statesmen. His 
hand was everywhere, " getting the affairs of Europe 
into trim," as he called it ; and, of course, he was par- 
ticularly active in the Iberian peninsula, where he had 
a prescriptive right to interfere. Palmerston's Quad- 
ruple Treaty had placed Donna Maria on the throne of 
Portugal, and two years later she was provided with a 
Coburg husband by old Stockmar. The marriage was 
a happy one, but the young Prince was unpopular with 
the Portuguese, chiefly because they regarded him as a 
puppet in the hands of his factotum Dietz, whom, un- 
warned by the experiences of King Otho at Athens, 
he had brought with him to Lisbon. Opposition in 
Portugal took the form, not of votes of censure, but of 
street fighting, and Radicalism, getting the upper hand, 
forced upon the Court a democratic constitution. The 
natural result was that Donna Maria became con- 
firmedly absolutist, and all influence passed into the 
hands of a clique known as the Camarilla, in which the 
obnoxious Dietz was suspected of playing a prominent 
part. Opportunity for action was found by the Court 
party in outbreaks which occurred in 1846, and Count 
Saldanha was the willing instrument of a codj) d'etat 
which closed the Cortes and established a state of 
siege in the capital. Constitutionalism found refuge, as 
on previous occasions, at Oporto, a leader in Count daa 



YEABS OF REVOLUTION. Ill 

Antas, and once more Portugal became a prey to civil 
war. 

There was little dignity in the struggle, and the 
ridiculous would have been its most prominent feature, 
were it not for the fact that the " swell-mob riots" — to 
use Palmerston's apt definition — were rapidly ruining 
the country. Of course, the Court party, by essaying a 
counter-revolution, had put itself completely in the 
wrong ; the cabal had no hold on the country, and could 
not even justify its existence by success. On the other 
hand, the Das Antas Junta was evidently animated by 
faction rather than patriotism; it did not hesitate to 
make common cause with the resuscitated Miguelite 
party, to threaten Donna Maria with the fate of Louis 
XVI., to vie with the Camarilla in the barbarity of its 
methods of war. It was evidently not desirable that 
the dynasty should be upset for the sake of a gang of 
adventurers. That was Palraerston's view, and he 
offered to negotiate between the two parties, but only 
on condition that Donna Maria would put her house in 
order. The well-meaning attempt failed completely. 
Palmerston's envoy, Colonel Wylde, could not get a 
hearing at Oporto, and it was evident that the insur- 
gents, who believed themselves to be on the eve of 
victory, were not going to surrender to arguments. 
Equally clear was it that the Camarilla were looking to 
foreign intervention as the means for securing them 
selves in power. Their overtures were favourably 
received by the Spanish Government, which saw that 
the revival of Miguelism in one part of the Peninsula 
would be followed by that of Carlism in the other ; and 
by France, where Guizot was anxious to recover his 
lost prestige by any action, however inconsiderate. 
Palmerston was the last person to allow the superior 



112 LIFI] OF VISCOUNT PALMEBSTON. 

activity of a rival to deprive hira of the supreme influ- 
ence in the Peninsula which he had acquired by the 
masterstroke of 1834, especially as that intervention 
would certainly have resulted in the restoration of a 
despotic form of government. Hitherto he had agreed 
that the Quadruple Treaty did not apply, inasmuch as 
the present quarrel was one, not of dynasties, but of par- 
ties, and therefore a matter which the Portuguese should 
be left to settle by themselves. He still maintained 
that reasoning, but adroitly excused his change of policy 
by laying stress on the hopelessness of terminating the 
war through the obstinacy of Saldanha on the one side, 
and Das Antas on the other, while he anticipated 
France and Spain by himself taking the initiative. If 
there was no prospect of a compromise, he promised 
Donna Maria to " concert with the Governments of 
France and Spain" as to the best means of affording her 
effectual assistance, on condition that she would agree 
to (1) a full and general amnesty, (2) the revocation of 
all decrees passed since the coup cCelaty (3) a general 
election and the convocation of the Cortes, (4) the for- 
mation of a neutral ministry in place of the Camarilla. 

immediate and complete success followed this bold 
change of front. Donna Maria found it advisable to 
sacrifice Saldanha to Palmerston, much as Louis Phi- 
lippe had sacrificed Thiers in 1840. The Oporto Junta 
gave England and Spain the trouble of sending a fleet 
and an army respectively to the scene of operations 
before it collapsed. Civil war came to an end, and 
Palmerston could boast with reason that he had " saved 
the Portuguese Crown without oppressing the Portu- 
guese people, by transferring the struggle from the field 
of battle to the arena of Parliamentary debate/' It was 
not long before he could report that Constitutionalism 



YEARS OF EEVOLUTIOK 113 

was working most satisfactorily in Portugal. Palmer- 
ston, the peace-maker, was, however, attacked from both 
sides of the House of Commons, by Hume and the Radi- 
cals, on the pedantic ground that he had departed from the 
Liberal doctrine of non-intervention in internal affairs, 
by Lord George Bentinck and the Protectionists, who 
retained a sneaking affection for Dom Miguel. Lord 
Stanley took up the matter in the Upper House, and so 
serious was the crisis, that Lord John Russell wrote to 
the Queen that the days of his ministry were num- 
bered. Peel, however, came to the rescue ; the attack 
resolved itself into some most unjust aspersions on 
Colonel Wylde, who had the misfortune to be attached 
to the Prince Consort's suite, and was therefore supposed 
to have acted in Coburg interests; and Lord George 
Bentinck, not feeling sure of a majority, allowed the 
House to be counted out before Palmerston had opened 
his mouth. Great was the astonishment in the House 
of Lords, where the discussion also collapsed, and 
ministers found themselves in possession of an unex- 
pected majority of twenty. 

The English intervention in Portugal would probably 
have evoked some token of displeasure from Met- 
ternich, had it not been that his attention was con- 
centrated on the affairs of Switzerland. There, though 
he was unaware of the fact, his system was on its trial, 
and its inability to contend with the spirit of the time 
was a sign of weakness which the revolutionary party 
turned to account throughout Europe in the following 
year. It was a very confused struggle that was 
tlireatening to destroy the congeries of peoples and lan- 
guages which had organized itself into an inharmonious 
whole among the mountains. But two facts seem to be 
beyond dispute, that in the religious disputes between 

8 



114 LIFE OF VISCOUNT FALMEE8T0N. 

the Protestant and Catholic cantons, the latter were the 
aggressors, and that the decree for the expulsion of the 
Jesuits passed by the Protestant majority in the Swiss 
Diet was really an act of self-defence ; secondly, that 
when the Catholic cantons, instead of submitting to the 
vote of the majority, seceded from the Confederation, 
and formed a Sonderbund or league of their own, they 
were putting themselves outside the law of the land. 
'* No alliances," ran the sixth article of the Swiss con- 
stitution, '* shall be formed by the cantons among each 
other, prejudicial either to the general confederacy or to 
the rights of other cantons"; and Metternich would 
have done well to hesitate before he gave the support 
of his authority to a course which, though professedly 
Catholic and Conservative, was separatist, and therefore, 
in reality, revolutionary, according to his theory of 
politics. It was a strange contradiction to find Austria, 
the ruler over millions of unrepresented aliens, sup- 
porting the principle of cantonal sovereignty in Switzer- 
land, declaring that the action of the Sonderbund had 
dissolved the Diet, and demanding the joint intervention 
of the Powers. Even Guizot seems to have been in 
some degree sensible of the perplexities in which the 
Powers vvere likely to be involved through Metternich's 
unswerving confidence in the sanctity and unchangeable- 
ness of political phraseology, and his terror of the Radi- 
cal spectre. Though willing to agree to the eventual 
dissolution of the Confederation, Guizot wished first to 
invoke the arbitration of the Pope for the settlement of 
the religious dispute, and a conference of ambassadors for 
the modification of the Federal compact. Even so, the 
destruction of the Swiss Confederacy was only removed 
by one degree, for French and Austrian sympathy was 
wholly on the side of the Sonderbund ; and there was in 



YEARS OF REVOLUTION. 115 

addition the prospect of a European quarrel over the 
destiny of Switzerland, as was afterwards the case with 
Schleswig-Holstein. 

The despatch by which Palmerston averted immediate 
intervention was a diplomatic masterpiece, though 
amusingly inconsistent with his proceedings in Portugal. 
Its burden throughout was the blessedness of peace and 
the danger of interference in the internal affairs of other 
nations. 

Her Majesty's Government, he declared, could not go to the length 
of thinking that either the formation of the Sonderbund, or the appeal 
which the seven Cantons composing it have made to foreign Powers, 
or the civil war which has broken out, can entitle the Powers of 
Europe to consider the Swiss Oonfedei'ation as dissolved, and to 
declare themselves released from their engagements towards that 
Confederation. 

Mediation might be offered, but for it to be success- 
ful, it was desirable that the five Powers should come to 
an understanding among themselves : Her Majesty^s 
Government, therefore, would suggest that the basis of 
the arrangement to be proposed by the five Powers to the 
contending parties in Switzerland should be the re- 
moval of the Jesuits. This would abolish the practical 
grievance of the Diet, the Sonderbund was to be con- 
ciliated by the assertion of the principle of can- 
tonal sovereignty, and that declaration having been 
made by the Diet, the seven seceding cantons could no 
longer have any pretence whatever for continuing that 
union which was called the Sonderbund. Even if me- 
diation failed, the British Government declined to be a 
party to armed interference in the aff'airs of Switzer- 
land, and wished the functions of the mediating Con- 
ference to be confined to the settlement of present 
difl'erences : — 

8 * 



116 LIFE OF VISCOUNT PALMEB8T0N, 

The coustitution of the Confederation provides the means for 
making such iaiprovements as circumstances and the altered state of 
things may from time to time render expedient in the Federal com- 
pact: and such matters do not appear to Her Majesty's Government 
to require the intervention of Foreign Powers. 

The effect of Palmerston's proposals would simply 
have been to decide every point under dispute in favour 
of the Diet, and there was a touch of the sublime in his 
suggestion that the Conference should look upon the 
expulsion of the Jesuiis, the principal question at issue, 
as settled without discussion. The real truth was that 
Palmerston was simply playing out diplomatic rope in 
order to gain time. It mattered little to him that Eng- 
land was completely isolated for tlie moment; there was 
no real cohesion between France and Austria, and but 
little chance of Guizot's being able to avenge the 
moral defeat of France on the Syrian question by ex- 
cluding England from the settlement or unsettlement 
of Switzerland. The promptitude with which General 
Dufour brouglit the military operations ordered by the 
Diet against the Sonderbund to a successful conclusion,* 
and the modciation which the Diet displayed in the 
moment of victory, deprived Metternich of all excuse for 
mediation ; and having egged on the secession of the 
Sonderbund, he had to sit by and witness its extinction. 
The conduct of Palmerston attracted but little attention 
at the time ; but there can be no doubt that Switzerland 
owed its continued independence to his refusal to join in 
coercive measures against a law-abiding majority, and in 
favour of a faction. 

The revolutionary principle which had showed itself 

* It was strongly suspected that Mr. Peel, our consul at Lucei'ne, 
advised General Dufour to hasten his operations, but Palmei'ston 
afterwards denied that he had written a single syllable that could 
justify such a message. 



YEARS OF revolution: 117 

in clerical garb in Switzerland^ was raising its voice 
throughout Italy during these months of anticipation 
and fear with considerably greater vehemence, and in 
Italy, as in Switzerland, Metternich and Palmerston 
found themselves in direct antagonism. Metteimich 
was determined upon the blind repression of all move- 
ments that could be construed into efforts for the pro- 
motion of Italian unity. *' Italy was,'^ according to his 
famous apothegm, to remain *' a geographical expres- 
sion "; no departure could be permitted from the state 
of affairs established by the Treaty of Vienna, a quarter 
of a century before ; and he saw in the tardy efforts of 
Carlo Alberto of Savoy, the Arch-duke of Tuscany, 
and the newly-elected Pope Pio Nono, to liberalise their 
institutions, the approaching end of the Austrian rule 
throughout the Peninsula. Palmerston, more truly 
Conservative, thought that reform was not necessarily 
identical with revolution ; though the direction of affairs 
was fast slipping from their hands, he held that the 
Italian princes might possibly save themselves even yet 
by timely and sincere concessions, and he sent warning 
to Austria that she must abandon all idea of making 
any reforms that the Italian States might adopt a pre- 
text for invading their territories. The Italian question 
was one of European importance. '' Italy,'"* he wrote 
to Lord John Russell, soon after his return to the 
Foreign Office, **is the weak part of Europe, and the 

* Count Beust, in his memoirs, has pointed out with admirable 
force that while the Kevolution of July was purely French in its 
origin, that of February was European. '' The true date of its com- 
mencement," he says, "•' is not 1848 but 1847. In that year the feeble- 
ness of the great Grovernments became apparent to the Eui'opean 
party of agitation, and from that moment the first trivial cause (such 
as the Parisian conllict really was) sufficed for its outbreak. Memoirs 
(Eng. trans.), vol. i. pp. 43-44. 



118 LIFE OF VISCOUNT PALMEESTON. 

next war that breaks out in Europe will probably arise 
out of Italian affairs. • . . Leave things as they are, 
and you leave France the power of disturbing the 
peace of Europe whenever she chooses.'"' That his 
prophecy of French intervention was not fulfilled to the 
letter, and that the Crimean war anticipated that of 
Italian liberation, is no real argument against its 
wisdom. For Lamartine in 1848 would certainly, if he 
could, have antidated the events of 1859, and actually 
offered assistance to the insurgents. Whether at this 
juncture the mission of Lord Minto to Italy with 
the view of strengthening by seasonable advice the 
feeble knees of the princes in their progress along the 
paths of constitutional government, was a particularly 
wise step may perhaps be doubted. Mr. Dioraeli's 
sneer at the despatch of a British agent " to teach poli- 
tics in the country where Machiavelli was born," was 
perhaps hardly to the point, because the petty despots of 
the Italian Peninsula were very feeble imitations of the 
ideal Prince of the great Florentine, even in their vices. 
But the Minto mission should have started two 
years earlier, if it wished to be successful. In 1847, 
while it contended fruitlessly with the animosity of 
Austria, and the insincerity of the pretended reformers, 
its presence was turned by the Young Italy party into a 
pretext for renewed agitation. The revolutionary out- 
burst in Sicily, followed by the general upheaval of 
Italy against Austria and her puppets, showed that 
affairs had passed beyond the stage in which platonic 
advice was of avail ; that it was too late, to quote a 
phrase used later by Mr. Disraeli, to try *'to found in 
Italy a Whig party, a sort of Brooks's club at Florence.'* 
But there is no reason to consider the Minto mission 
other than a perfectly honest attempt to save the Aus- 



TIJABS OF EEVOLUTION. 119 

trian empire in Italy in spite of itself. For to Lord 
Palmerston, as to the rest of the world, the programme 
of Young Italy seemed totally incapable of execution, 

France, however, not Italy, as Lord Palmerston had 
expected, was the site of the first revolutionary vic- 
tories; but they soon ran their course over Europe, 
driving Louis Philippe from the Tuileries, Metternich 
from Vienna, and shipwrecking autocracy at Berlin. 
England may then be said to have become by force of 
circumstances the arbiter of the destinies of the conti- 
nent. Little Belgium alone rode the gale by her side, 
and by every post, as Palmerston wrote to Lord Nor- 
manby, a lamenting Minister threw himself and his 
country upon England for help. It is a remarkable 
proof of how strong was the element of common sense 
in Palmerston's character, that he refrained, with one 
or two possible exceptions, from injudicious action, and 
left the Powers to put their houses in order as best they 
could without attempting to interfere with their arrange- 
ments. The most striking exception was in the case of 
Spain, whither Palmerston thought it advisable to send 
a lecture on constitutional government, which, though 
sound in argument, and justified to a certain extent by 
the semi-domestic relations established between England 
and Isabella by the Quadruple alliance, was decidedly 
too peremptory in tone. The Queen of Spain was 
informed that she " would act wisely in the present 
critical state of affairs if she was to strengthen her exe- 
cutive government by widening the bases on which the 
administration reposes, and in calling to her counsels 
some of the men in whom the Liberal party reposed 
confidence.'^ The Queen of Spain retaliated by return- 
ing the despatch, and, after a heated controversy, by 
ordering our minister, Sir Henry Bulwer, to quit the 



120 LIFE OF VISCOUNT PALMFRSTON, 

kingdom within forty-eight hours, and Palmerston was 
powerless to avenge the insult which his inconsiderate 
zeal had brought on England. It seems that the 
despatch was sent in direct defiance of Lord John Rus- 
sell's directions, and the Ministry was naturally not 
sorry to retaliate on their headstrong colleague by 
refusing to support his proposals for the coercion of the 
Spanish Government. 

Otherwise, his conduct of affairs was thoroughly 
pacific and sane. It was not in human nature for the 
Foreign Secretary to refrain from expressing satisfaction 
at the overthrow of Louis Philippe ; but no trace of 
malignancy is to be found in his satisfaction, and his 
hospitable doors were thrown open to the fallen Guizot. 
To Lamartine, whose splendid efforts as head of the 
Provisional Government at Paris against socialism and 
anarchy were attracting the admiration of Europe, 
he held out the right hand of fellowship. Lord Nor- 
manby was directed to remain at his post; and was told 
that whatever rule possessed prospect of permanency, 
would be acknowledged by the British Government. In 
the same spirit our ambassadors at Berlin and Vienna 
were directed to use their influence to prevent the Ger- 
man Powers from attacking France. " For the present," 
Palmerston wrote to Lord Ponsonby, *' the only chance 
for tranquillity and order in France, and for peace in 
Europe, is to give support to Lamartine. I am con- 
vinced the French Government will not be aggressive if 
left alone; and it is to be hoped that Apponyi (the 
Austrian ambassador) and others will be allowed to re- 
main in Paris till things take a decided turn. If a 
republic is decidedly established, the other Powers 
of Europe must, of course, give credentials addressed 
to that Government, or they will have to give billets to 



YEARS OF EEVOLUTION. 121 

its troops." Not even Lamartine's circular, declaring 
that the treaties of 1815 had ceased to exist, could 
frighten Palmerston out of his confidence in the high- 
minded orator ; he saw in it a mere paper concession to 
the French war party, and Lamartine's cold recep- 
tion of Smith O'Brien's deputation confirmed his good 
opinion of the intentions of the French Provisional 
Government. 

Palmerston's Italian policy naturally changed with 
the times. With the Austrian provinces of Italy in full 
revolt, it was impossible to keep to the programme of 
the Minto mission. Even the sovereigns whose laggard 
steps the Foreign Secretary had attempted to quicken, 
had severed themselves from the Austrian connec- 
tion ; and whether from dynastic ambition as in the 
case of Carlo Alberto, or from prudential motives as 
that of Tuscany and Naples, were sending troops to the 
aid of Lombardy and Venetia. Palmerston thought, under 
the circumstances, that the Austrian rule, south of the 
Alps, must come to an end, and the Sardinian dynasty 
take its place. "Northern Italy," he wrote to Lord 
Minto, *'will henceforward be Italian, and the Austrian 
frontier will be at the Tyrol. ... Of course, Parma 
and Modena will follow the example, and in this way 
the King, no longer of Sardinia, but of Northern Italy, 
will become a sovereign of some importance in Europe. 
This will make a league between him and the other 
Italian rulers still more desirable, and much more 
feasible. Italy ought to unite in a confederacy similar 
to that of Germany, commercial and poUtical, and now 
is the time to strike while the iron is hot.'' No very 
ambitious scheme this, and eertainly falling far short of 
the dreams of Mazzini and Young Italy, since it left 
Florence to the Medici, Naples to the Bourbons, the 



122 LIFI] OF VISCOUNT FALMERSTON, 

Papal States to ecclesiastical misgovernment. Per- 
haps Palmerston felt that the important point for the 
moment was to secure the freedom of North Italy, that 
with the Hapsburgs gone, the Bourbons and their kind 
must follow. Anyhow, when the old Austrian com- 
mander Radetsky was compelled to retire from Milan, 
and take refuge in the Quadrilateral fortresses behind the 
Mincio, with Venice triumphant in his rear, it seemed as 
if Italy, to use the phrase afterwards made by Napoleon 
III., would be free from the Alps to the Adriatic. 

The temptation to throw the military strength of 
England into the scale was possibly considerable with 
the Foreign Secretary; but the Austrian sympathies of 
the Court, the Conservative party, and a not incon- 
siderable section of the Whigs, were far too vehement to 
warrant such an undertaking, and Palmerston had to be 
content with that position of "judicious bottle-holder" 
which he afterwards described himself as having taken 
lip with regard to the Hungarian insurgents. Carlo 
Alberto was told that " he was engaged in a struggle of 
doubtful result, and that the principle upon which it 
was commenced was full of danger ;" but Austria was 
informed again and again that " things had gone much 
too far to admit of any future connection " between the 
Italians and herself. In the actual result his anticipa- 
tions proved far too sanguine. The recuperative power 
of Austria was greater than Europe imagined ; and the 
want of cohesion among the Italians, on account of the 
treachery of the King of Naples, the insincerity of the 
Pope, the deep-rooted antipathy of the republican party 
to the Sardinian dynasty, the inability of Carlo Al- 
berto to control the forces he had brought into activity, 
rendered them impotent to work out their own salvation. 
French intervention alone could have saved Italy aftel 



YEARS OF REVOLUTION. 123 

Kadetzky had stamped out the insurrection in Venetia, 
and by that time the turbulence of Paris had compelled 
the substitution at the head of affairs of the unimagina- 
tive Cavaignac for the cosmopolitan Lamartine. 

Perhaps Lord Palmerston ought to have foreseen the 
fatal consequences of Italian disunion, but he only erred 
with the rest of Europe in believing, after the fall of 
Peschiera, that Carlo Alberto could hold the whole of 
North Italy, and it is improbable that he could have 
persuaded the Sardinian Government to accept less 
terms than the surrender of the whole of Venetia and 
Lombardy, even if he had wished to do so. There was, 
too, an insincerity about the Austrian overtures which 
disgusted both Palmerston and the advisers of Carlo 
Alberto. It was found that the proposals for an 
armistice, of which Palmerston consented to be the 
mouth-piece, were. only made to gain time for the ad- 
vance of Austrian reinforcements, and for attempts to 
sow dissension between Lombardy and Sardinia. And 
the maximum of Austrian surrender, the cession of 
Lombardy minus Venetia, seemed ludicrously inadequate 
at a moment when everyone expected to hear that 
Eadetzky was in full retreat to the Alps. Things had 
gone too far, was Palmerston's opinion, and the British 
Government were unwilling to enter upon a negotiation 
which, in their opinion, offered no prospects of success ; 
and to make a proposal, which they felt confident be- 
forehand that one of the parties, Sardinia, would posi- 
tively refuse to accept. He pointed out besides, what 
subsequent events amply proved to be true, that Austria 
could only hold Venetia by military occupation pure 
and simple, and that any possessions south of the Alps 
must, therefore, be a source of weakness to her rather 
than of strength. The retort of the Austrians, that 



124 LIFE OF VISCOUNT FALMEBSTON. 

the loss of prestige would be far more serious than the 
expense of maintaining troops in Italy, was perhaps 
natural ; and in the impregnable defences of the 
Quadrilateral, and the Fabian skill of Radetzky, they 
had ample means for closing the discussion for the 
time being. Lord Palmerston's attempts to mitigate 
the punishment of the Italians, v;hen the recapture of 
Milan proved how completely the tide had turned, and 
during the cessation of hostilities which preceded the 
final overthrow of their hopes at No vara, were vigorous, 
but of course unsuccessful ; and it was left for Napoleon 
III. and the present Emperor of Germany to accomplish 
by blood and iron what Palmerston had so nearly 
effected by diplomacy. The rapture with which the 
news of the Austrian victory was received at Court and 
in London society, proved that in his faith in the cause 
of Italy, Palmerston was in advance of his time by at 
least a decade. At ail events, he had the courage of 
his opinions. 

Yesterday [writes Greville in March 1849] thei'e was a Drawing- 
room, at ^^bich everybody, the Queen included, complimented and 
wished joy to Colloredo (the Austrian ambassador), except Palmer- 
ston, who, though he spoke to him about other things, never alluded 
to the news that had just ai-rived from Italy. . . . Nothing could be 
more striking than this marked difference between the Foreign Secre- 
tary and his Sovereign, and all his counti'ymen, and we may be pretty 
sure Colloredo will not fail to make a pretty story of it to his Court. 

The Foreign Secretary about this period was doomed 
to witness the temporary overthrow of all his Italian 
projects. His proler/e, Pio Nono, proved unsatisfactory ; 
reforming zeal was evanescent at the Vatican, and the 
Holy Father was eventually forced by the outbreak of 
the revolution at Rome to summon French bayo- 
nets to support him against his own subjects, whose 



YEABS OF REVOLUTION, 125 

sympathies were for a republican form of govern- 
ment. Equally disappointing were Lord Minto's efforts 
to mediate between the King of Maples and the insur- 
gent Sicilians; the revolt was drowned in blood, and the 
hideous ferocity of the bombardment of Messina and 
Palermo gained for Ferdinando the nickname of 
" Bomba/' by which he is chiefly remembered. Un- 
fortunately for himself, Palmerston did not confine his 
efforts to mediation, but overstepped the limits of 
friendly neutrality by allowing arms to be supplied to 
the Sicilian insurgents from the Ordnance — as usual, 
without informing his colleagues. The matter was 
taken up by the Times, and in the House of Commons, 
but Palmerston escaped unscathed. He had, it is true, to 
apologise to Bomba, but apologies never cost him a very 
■violent pang of regret; while Greville was constrained 
to record the complete success of his answer to Mr 
Barker, ** a slashing, impudent speech, of sarcasms, 
jokes, and clap-traps," scarcely deigning to notice 
tJte question. A more dignified course of conduct 
was his remonstrance to the Neapolitan ambassador 
on the infamous mis^overnment disclosed by Mr. 
Gladstone's famous letters to Lord Aberdeen on the 
state prisons and state trials of King Bomba's Govern- 
ment. Prince Castelcicala was informed that Mr. Glad- 
stone's letters presented a picture of illegality, injustice, 
and cruelty, such as might have been hoped would 
not have existed in any European country. The re- 
monstrance was, however, burked by the Neapolitan 
ministers until the outcry had passed away, and pro- 
duced no effect, though Palmerston supplemented it by 
a fine speech in the House, in which he eulogised Mr. 
Gladstone's sympathy for the oppressed. 

The fulness of time has so amply demonstrated the 



126 LIFE OF VISCOUNT PALMEESTON. 

justice of Palmerston*s contention that the Austrian 
rule in Italy was an anachronism, and that freedom 
would certainly be accomplished, if not by the unaided 
efforts of the Italians, yet certainly through foreign 
intervention, that to defend it would be a mere waste of 
words. Italy, as he says in one of his letters to Lord 
Ponsonby, was to Austria the heel of Achilles, not the 
shield of Ajax. The Alps were her natural barrier, and 
her best defence. Palmerston was no enemy to Austria ; 
on the contrary, he wished to see her empire north of 
the Alps in a condition of strength and prosperity to 
act as a counterpoise to France. She was ** the pivot 
of the balance of power in Europe." His advice during 
the crisis was thoroughly sound, and was actually adopted 
in part. The abdication of the Emperor Ferdinand, "an 
iinplamis bipes, a Guy Faux, a perfect nullity, next thing 
to an idiot," as Palmerston rather imprudently styled him 
in his private letters, was in conformity with his recom- 
mendation ; and he may be forgiven for not being ac- 
quainted with the good qualities of the ** lad of sixteen 
or twenty,'^ Francis Joseph, who mounted the tottering 
throne in the place of his uncle. And with regard to 
the revolution in Hungary, his conduct was equally dis- 
interested. The idea of armed intervention was never 
entertained for a moment, though the sympathies of this 
country were as active in favour of the Magyars — thanks 
to the picturesqueness of Kossuth — as they were tepid 
with regard to the Lombards. He even declined to 
recognize the insurgents by giving an audience to their 
representative. At the same time he interceded on 
their behalf at Vienna ; but to his admirable advice 
Schwarzenberg, the successor of Metternich, turned a 
deaf ear. In the hour of victory the Austrian Govern- 
ment was urged to make a generous use of the successes 



YEARS OF REVOLUTION. 127 

which it had obtained, by restoring to Hungary its due 
constitutional rights; and Palmerston did not fail to 
point out that, by calling in Russian aid to crush the 
rebellion, Austria had set open a door which it might 
not be easy to shut.^ When the full details of the 
brutal suppression of the rebellion, the flogging of 
women and other atrocities, reached England, he allowed 
his righteous indignation full play ; and directed Lord 
Pbnsonby to maintain the dignity and honour of Eng- 
land by expressing openly and decidedly the disgust 
which such proceedings excited in the public mind. 

Though Palmerston's good oflBces on behalf of Italy 
and Hungary were of no avail for the time being, the 
diplomatic campaign against Prince Schwarzenberg 
closed with a brilliant triumph. After the end of the 
war, numerous fugitives, among whom were Kossuth 
and Bem, a Pole who had commanded the Hungarian 
insurgents with conspicuous success, took refuge in 
Turkey. The Russian and Austrian ambassadors at 
Constantinople took upon themselves to demand their 
surrender, with a threat that if their demands did not 
receive a categorical answer within a limited time they 
would suspend diplomatic relations ; and their high- 
handed conduct received the full sanction of their 
respective Governments, who appealed to loosely-worded 
treaties extorted from the Porte in former days of 
humiliation. An immediate surrender would have fol- 
lowed, had not Stratford Canning been at hand to 



* Cobden blamed him for not having sent a vigorous protest against 
the Russian expedition, and thought that it would have so strength- 
ened the hands of the Russian ministers that the Czar would have 
countermanded his troops (Morley's Cobden, vol. ii. p. 67). The idea 
tbat a Czar, especially Nicholas, would allow himself to be swayed by 
ministerial advice, is one of exquisite simplicity. 



128 LIFE OF VISCOTJUT PALMEESTOK, 

inspire the Sultan with a week*s resolution ; and Palmer- 
ston availed himself of the opportunity with his accus- 
tomed skill. Baron Briinnow, the Russian minister in 
London, was informed before the determination of his 
Government was known, that the British fleet was to be 
sent to the Dardanelles — "just as one holds a bottle of 
salts to the nose of a lady who has been frightened " — 
remarked the flippant Foreign Secretary ; and the alter- 
natives of the w^ithdrawal of the obnoxious demands, 
or war, were placed plainly before him and his Aus- 
trian colleague. In vain Schwarzenberg attempted to 
efTect a retreat through a back-door, by moderating his 
demands to a request that the fugitives should be 
detained by the Porte in the interior of Turkey ; it was 
incompatible with the dignity of the Sultan, said Pal- 
merston, that he should act as the gaoler of the 
Emperor of Austria. When, two years later, the 
Sultan summoned up courage to set Kossuth and his 
companions free, Palmerston could claim to have won 
all along the line. 



129 



CHAPTER Vlir. 

PALMERSTON AND THE COURT. 

1849—1852. 

Independence of Lord Palmerston — Differences of opinion with the 
Ooui't — The Danish succession question — The Pacifico affair — 
Breakdown of negotiations — Indignation of France — Civis Roma- 
nus sum — Effect of the speech— The Queen's Memorandum — The 
Haynau and Kossuth incidents — The coup d^etat — Dismissal of 
Palmerston — Constitutional side of the question — The Militia 
Bill— The first Derby Ministry. 

Though Lord Palmerston's policy since the return of 
the Whigs to power had been on the whole remarkably 
sober and sagacious, the Bulwer fiasco at Madrid and 
the Sicilian incident proved that the old Adam of in- 
subordination was not wholly dead within him. Nor 
were these the only occasions on which, forgetful of 
the flight of time, he attempted a repetition of the 
tactics which had been so successful in the good old 
days of Lord Melbourne, and sent off important 
despatches without submitting them to Lord John 
Eussell and the Sovereign, or without inserting the 
alterations which he had been directed to make. And 
the necessity of coming to a previous understanding 

9 



130 LIFE OF VISCOUNT PALMEBSTON", 

upon important steps was all the greater because the 
opinions of the Court and the Foreign Secretary 
were distinctly at issue on many questions of Eu- 
ropean importance. The sympathies of the Court 
were with Austria, those of Palmerston with Italy 
and Hungary, and his views were the wiser of the 
two ; but about North German politics he was rather 
prejudiced and rather ignorant, yet he paid small 
attention to the opinions of Prince Albert, who was 
unquestionably better informed. Among the many wise 
memoranda which are to be found in Sir Theodore 
Martin's Life of Prince Consort^ perhaps the most re- 
markable are those in which he urged the necessity of 
German unity under Prussian leadership. Palmerston, 
though, as can be seen in an interesting letter written by 
him during a visit to Berlin in 1844, he was not without 
some insight into the great part that Prussia would some 
day be called upon to play, cared little for German 
unity; and while Prince Albert saw in the ZoUverein, 
or customs union, a feeble beginning of a one and un- 
divided Fatherland, Palmerston resented its existence 
as an arrangement for placing prohibitive duties on 
British exports. 

Indeed, if the Danish succession question may be 
taken as a test, Palmerston's want of information 
on the inner workings of Teutonic politics was very 
considerable. Count Vitzthum, in his memoirs, goes 
so far as to state that the Foreign Secretary was 
actuated by personal motives in the matter, his aim 
being to purchase the non-interference of Baron 
Briiunow in the Don Pacifico affair by giving Russia 
a free hand at Copenhagen, and supporting, or at 
all events acquiescing, in the claims put forward by 
the Russian dynasty to a portion of the Danish terri- 



PALMEESTON AND THE COURT. 131 

tory, which included the important harbour of Kiel 
Even if this account of the history of the Protocol of 
July 4th 1850, upon which was based the Treaty of 
1852, guaranteeing the crown of Denmark to Prince 
Christian of Gliicksburg, be not accepted as gospel, 
there can be no doubt that the continued exclusion of 
Germany from the Baltic by the maintenance of the con- 
nection between Denmark and Schleswig-Holstein was 
far more a matter of interest to Russia than to England. 
And though there may be some question as to the 
motives which dictated the arrangement, there can be 
none as to the carelessness with which it was executed. 
The choice of the negotiators fell upon a prince who, 
whatever claims he might have to the throne of Den- 
mark, was regarded by German jurists to have a right 
to the Duchies inferior to no less than nineteen other 
members of the house of Schleswig-Holstein. The 
renunciations of these "agnates" were never obtained, 
nor was the consent of the Estates of the Duchies. 
Lastly, though the Duchies were indisputably members 
of the German Federation, no attempt was made to 
obtain for the arrangement the sanction of the Federa- 
tion in its collective form, for Austria and Prussia 
signed the Protocol not as mandatories of the Ger- 
man Diet, but individually, as great Powers. 

It seemed quite on the cards that a trial of strength 
between the Court and the Foreign Secretary might be 
averted by the retirement of Lord Palmerston from 
office, in consequence of a hostile opinion in the House 
of Commons as to the merits of his treatment of what is 
generally known as the Don Pacifico affair. LordPalmer- 
ston's defence of the Porte against the menaces of Eussia 
and Austria had been generally approved, but there was 
naturally some revulsion of public feeling when it was 

9 * 



132 LIFE OF VISCOUNT PALMEBSTON. 

discovered that the fleet which had been so honourably 
employed at the Dardanelles was immediately after- 
wards despatched to coerce the weak little kingdom of 
Greece for the non-compliance with the demands of the 
British Government for compensation for various acts 
of violence committed towards British subjects. There 
was even a feeliog of dismay when the intelligence 
leaked out that the French Government had actually 
recalled its Minister, Drouyn de Lhuys, from London, 
because it believed that his attempts to patch up the 
dispute between England and Greece had been treated 
with scanty respect, and that the Russian Government 
had demanded an explanation of Palmerstons's proceed- 
ings in rather a serious tone. 

Perhaps the points at issue were hardly understood. 
The seizure of the Greek gunboats and Greek mer- 
chantmen by Admiral Parker was regarded as a piece 
of bullying, by people who argued as if the feebleness of a 
State was a reason for allowing it to commit crimes v/ith 
impunity. There was also a disposition to minimise 
the amount and duration of the wrongs committed, and 
to overlook the utter impossibility of obtaining redress 
through the Greek courts of law or by any means short 
of the employment of force. Because one of the com- 
plainants, Don Pacifico, was a Jew adventurer who seized 
the opportunity to put forward some utterly extortionate 
claims for compensation, there was no reason why satis- 
faction should not be exacted for the destruction of his 
house by an Athenian mob. At any rate, Mr. Finlay, 
the historian, whose land had been seized by King 
Otho without a drachma in return, was a perfectly 
reputable person ; and, of the other offences of the 
Hellenic authorities, the torture of an Ionian who was a 
British subject, and the arrest of the coxswain and boat's 



PALMEBSTON AND THE COURT. 133 

crew of H.M.S. Fantomef were unquestionably outrages 
of a very serious nature. 

The British case against the disreputable little Greek 
Government was really perfectly clear, but to apportion 
the blame for the breakdown of the negotiations was 
a nicer question. The offer of French mediation was 
certainly made in good faith, though Palmerston 
strongly suspected that the intrigues of the French 
minister at the Greek Court were at the bottom of King 
Otho's obstinacy. But when Baron Gros, the French 
Commissioner, arrived at Athens, his proceedings 
resembled those of an advocate rather than those of an 
arbitrator; the terms of his settlement were rejected by 
our ambassador, Mr. Wyse, as inadequate, and he 
thereupon gave notice that his mission was at an end. 
Meanwhile, a parallel series of negotiations had been 
going on in London between Drouyn de Lhuys and 
Palmerston, which had issue in a convention signed on 
the 18th which disposed of the whole question under dis- 
pute. Intimation of the terms of the proposed arrange- 
ment, of which the essential was that if the negotia- 
tors at Athens could not agree, they should refer their 
differences to London, reached Baron Oros on the 24th, 
and was communicated by him to Mr. Wyse ; but the 
latter, who had received no fresh instructions from 
London corresponding to those that his French col- 
league had received from Paris, did not venture to 
depart from his previous instructions and postpone the 
employment of force. The embargo was renewed on 
the 25th, and on the following day the Greek Govern- 
ment submitted unconditionally. 

It was but natural that the French Government 
should feel that they had been treated with disrespect, 
and resent that treatment accordingly. Drouyn de 



134 LIFU OF VISCOUNT PALME RSTON. 

Lbiiys was recalled from London, and General Lahitte, 
the French Foreign Minister, openly charged the British 
Government with duplicity. A dispassionate examina- 
tion of the whole affair would probably have acquitted 
Palmerston of a more serious offence than neglect to 
keep Mr. Wyse constantly and accurately informed 
on the progress of negotiations in London. But 
he did not improve matters by trying, in answer to 
Mr. Milner Gibson, to explain away the recall of 
Drouyn de Lhuys, who, said he, had gone to Paris " in 
order personally to be a medium of communication 
between the two Governments." The excitement was 
great, though the danger of war was in reality quite 
remote ; many of Palmerston's colleagues were anxious 
to be rid of him, and the Opposition in the House of 
Lords seized the opportunity to win a bloodless victory 
by carrying a hostile resolution on the motion of Lord 
Stanley by a majority of 27. The Cabinet, after delibe- 
ration, decided to stand or fall together, and resolved 
to cancel the bad effects of the vote in the Upper flouse, 
by availing themselves of a resolution of which Mr. 
Roebuck had given notice — that the principles on which 
the foreign policy of Her Majesty's Government had 
been regulated had been such as were calculated to 
maintain the honour and dignity of this country, and 
in times of unexampled difficulty to preserve peace 
between England and the various nations of the 
world. 

The debate of four nights which followed was made 
memorable by the last speech that Sir Robert Peel ever 
made, by Mr. Cockburn's brilliant *' Crown and An- 
chor" harangue, as Mr. Disraeli termed it, by one of 
the greatest of Mr. Gladstone's oratorical displays, and 
by Palmerston's magnificent defence of his policy in a 



PALMEBSTON AND THE OOUBT. 136 

speech lasting *' from the dusk of one day till the dawn 
of another."^ Of that magnificent specimen of sus- 
tained and elaborate argument it is impossible here to 
give more than a very meagre account. Part of it was 
a well-considered apolof/ia pro vita sua, in which he 
passed the whole of recent European history before him 
in skilful review, by a series of graceful transitions 
from the *' sunny plains of Castille and gay vineyards 
of France " to the ** rugged Alps and smiling plains 
of Lombardy/' Incidentally he managed to make a 
remarkably neat cut at his enemies in Paris, and to 
those who listened to them in England, by laughing 
to scorn the idea that the French had driven out M. 
Guizot at the instigation of a knot of foreign con- 
spirators who were *' caballing " against him, ** for no 
other reason than that he upheld, as he conceived, the 
dignity and interests of his country." On the Greek 
question his argument was temperate and lucid, except 
when it concerned the breakdown of the mission of 
Baron Gros, and there leakages are to be discovered in 
abundance. But little exception can be taken to his 
contention that if British subjects could get no redress 
from foreign courts of law, they were not to be con- 
fined to that remedy only, but were entitled to receive 
the protection of their own Government; or to his 
arguments that Mr. Finlay had no redress because the 
Greek revolution of 1843 had thrown a veil over the 
unconstitutional acts of the Monarchy, and that with 
respect to Don Pacifico it was impossible to take pro- 
ceedings against a mob of five hundred persons. The 
orator brushed aside the flimsy objection that, because 

* The speech I had to make [he wrote to his brother] could not 
be comprised within a shorter time than from a quarter before ten to 
twenty minutes past two. 



136 LIFE OF VISCOUNT PALMERSTON. 

M. Pacifico was a person of doubtful antecedents, he 
could be maltreated with impunity. 

The rights of a man depend on the merits of the particular case ; 
and it is an abuse of argument to say that you are not to give redress 
to a man because in some former transactions he may have done 
something -which is questionable. Punish him, if you will — punish him 
if he is guilty, but don't pursue him as a Pariah through life. . . " Oh, 
but," it is said, " what an ungenerous proceeding to employ so large 
a force against so small a power ! " Does the smallness of a country 
justify the magnitude of its evil acts ? Is it to be held that if your 
subjects suflfer violence, outrage, and plunder, in a country which is 
small and weak, you are to tell them, when they apply for compensa- 
tion, that the country is so weak and so small that we cannot ask it 
for compensation? Their answer would be that the weakness and 
smallness of the country makes it the more easy to obtain redress 

At the close of the speech came the well-known 
peroration in which the Foreign Secretary extolled the 
dignity of English citizenship. He did not, he said, 
blame the Opposition for attacking Ministers ; for the 
government of England was an object of fair and 
legitimate ambition for men of all shades of opinion. 

For while we have seen . . - the political earthquake rocking 
Europe from side to side, while we have seen thrones shaken, 
shattered, levelled, institutions overthrown and destroyed, while in 
almost every country of Europe the conflict of civil war has deluged 
the land with blood, from the Atlantic to the Black Sea, from the 
Baltic to the Mediterranean, this country has presented a spectacle 
honourable to the people of England and worthy of the admiration 
of mankind. We have shown that liberty is compatible with order, 
that individual freedom is not irreconcilable with obedience to the 
law. We have shown the example of a nation, in which very 
class of society accepts with cheerfulness the lot which Providence 
has assigned to it, while at the same time every individual of each 
class is constantly striving to raise himself in the social scale — not by 
injustice and wrong, not by violence and illegality — but by persever- 
ing good conduct, and by the steady and energetic exertion of the 
moral and intellectual faculties with which his Creator has endowed 
him. To govern such a people as this is indeed an object worthy 
of the ambition of the noblest man who lives in the land ; and there- 



PALMERSTON AND THE COURT. 137 

fore I find no fault with those who may think any opportunity a fair 
one for endeavouring to place themselves in so distinguished and 
honourable a position. . . . But, making allowances for those diffe- 
rences of opinion, which may fairly and honourably arise among 
those who concur in general views, I maintain that the principles 
which can be traced through all our foreign transactions, as the 
guiding rule and directing spirit of our proceedings, are such as 
deserve approbation. I therefore fearlessly challenge the verdict 
which this House, as representing a political, a commercial, a con- 
stitutional country, is to give on the question before it ; whether the 
principles on which the foreign policy of this country has been con- 
ducted, and the sense of duty which has led us to think ourselves bound 
to afford protection to our fellow subjects abroad, are proper and 
fitting guides for those who are charged with the government of 
England, and whether, as the Roman in the days of old held himself 
free from indignity when he could say Civis Romanus sum, so also a 
British subject, in whatever land he be, shall feel confident that the 
watchful eye and the strong arm of England shall protect him against 
injustice and wrong. 

This speech not only gave the Government a hand- 
some majority of forty-six, but it raised the reputation 
of Palmerston to a height to which none of his con- 
temporaries, not even Lord John Eussell himself, could 
hope to aspire. '* We are proud of the man who delivered 
that most able and temperate speech " was Sir Robert 
Peel's generous acknowledgment ; and Palmerston wrote 
to his brother, that he was for the present the most 
popular Minister that for a very long course of time had 
held his ofiBce. The Don Pacilico debate was un- 
questionably an important landmark in the life of Lord 
Palmerston. Hitherto his merits had been known only 
to a select few; for the British public does not read 
Blue Books, and as a rule troubles itself very little about 
foreign politics at alL His greatest achievements had 
passed almost unnoticed by the electorate, though they 
had certainly looked upon him as a strong and capable 
man. But the Pacifico speech caught the ear of the 



138 LIFE OF VISOOUNT PALMERSTON, 

nation, and was received with a universal verdict of 
approval. From that hour Lord Palmerston became the 
man of the people, and his rise to the premiership only a 
question of time. As Mr. Morley has pointed out in his 
Li/e of Cobde?iy Lord Derby and Mr. Disraeli were un- 
able to keep in power if they got there ; the Whigs were 
steadily losing ground in popular opinion ; the Man- 
chester School was out of the question. Lord Pal- 
merston's only possible rival was Sir Kobert Peel, and 
he met his death the very day after he had taken part in 
the Pacifico debate. 

At the same time there were breakers ahead. The 
distrust of the Court continued without abatement, and 
attempt was made, with the concurrence of Lord John 
Russell, the Duke of Bedford, Lord Lansdowne, and 
Lord Clarendon, to induce the Foreign Secretary to 
accept some other office, which, however, he declined to 
do. Fresh negligence brought down upon him fresh 
rebukes from the Queen, culminating in the famous 
Memorandum of August the 12Lh, in which she required 
that, under penalty of dismissal, (1) he would distinctly 
state what he proposed in a given case, in order that 
the Queen might know as distinctly to what she had 
given her Royal sanction ; (2) that, having once given 
her sanction to a measure, it should not be arbitrarily 
altered or modified by the Minister. Palmerston, with 
tears in his eyes, pretested to Prince Albert that he had 
been accused of being wanting in respect to the Queen, 
which was an imputation on his honour as a gentleman : 
pleaded stress of business, and the loss of time incurred 
by sending despatches to the Queen through the Premier : 
and promised amendment. He did not resign, he after- 
wards explained, for several reasons, because he had no 
reason to believe that the memorandum would ever be 



PALMERSTON AND THE COURT, 139 

made public ; because lie had recently gained a signal 
vic-tory in the Commons, and to have resigned then 
would have been to have delivered the fruits of victory 
to the adversaries whom he had defeated ; and thirdly, 
because he would have been bringing to the bar of 
public opinion, a qunrrel between himself and his 
Sovereign, the result of which course must have been 
fatal to himself or injurious to his country. 

Within a month he had submitted a letter of regret for 
the maltreatment of the "Austrian butcher" General 
Haynau, by Messrs. Barclay's draymen, to Baron Koller 
the Austrian Cliarge d'Affaires, without consulting the 
Premier or the Queen, which contained a paragraph to 
which they both objected, and which they forced him to 
withdraw. This was early in September. Early in 
November, Kossuth arrived in England, and Palmerston, 
dissuaded by the united representations of the Cabinet 
from receiving him at Broadlands, relieved his feelings by 
receiving a deputation of Islington and Finsbury Radicals, 
to wdiom, in return for their denunciations of the Em- 
perors of Russia and Austria as ** odious and detestable 
assassins '' and " merciless tyrants and despots," he de- 
livered the*'judicious bottle-holder" oration, and thanked 
them for their flattering and gratifying expressions of 
opinion. 

The impropriety of such language was so obvious, 
that the virulence of the Kossuth mania in England was 
probably the only reason which prevented Lord John 
Russell from effecting his long meditated manifestation 
of authority. '* I think," was Greville's comment, *' this 
is on the whole the worst thing he (Palmerston) has 
ever done." Certainly Lord John Russell, who had 
swallowed the camel, seems to have strained at a gnat, 
when he ejected Palmerston from office on the 19th of 



140 LIFE OF VISCOUNT FALMEBSTOK, 

December, for having expressed his approval of Louis 
Napoleon's coup d'etat, in a conversation with the 
French Minister, Count Walewski ; and Greville's sur- 
mise, that the occasion was made a casus belli because 
Palmerston had taken the unpopular side, was probably 
right. No doubt it was extremely inconvenient, when 
Lord Normanby informed the French Foreign Minister 
that he was directed to observe a policy of strict 
neutrality, that he should receive intimation that, two 
days before, Count Walewski had conveyed Palmerston's 
entire approbation of the act of Louis Napoleon. Our 
Minister and Government were placed in an extremely 
false position. Still Lord John Russell never at- 
tempted to deny that he. Lord Lansdowne, and Sir 
Charles Wood, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, had 
also expressed their approval of the coup d'etat to 
Count Walewski in conversation ; and there is, as diplo- 
matists know, considerable force in Palmerston's argu- 
ment that his communication was " unofficial." * Lord 
John probably thought that the sum total of Palmerston's 
offences was so great that any harshness towards him 
^Yas justifiable, even the crowning indignity of the offer 
of the Lord Lieutenancy of Ireland. When the usual 
explanations took place in the House of Commons, he 
was even more relentless, and produced with crushing 
effect the Queen's memorandum of August 1850. Pal- 
merston, who had refused to believe that so complete an 

* Lord Malmesbury clearly acknowledges the distinction between 
an " officious" and " official" conversation (^Memoirs of an Ex-Mini- 
ster, i. 303, note). On the other hand the Duke of Wellington pro- 
nounced most decidcdlT against any attempt to establish a distinction 
between private and official opinions. " Oh, but that won't do," he 
said to Prince Albert;, " That would be dishonest. It would be 
appearing in two characters. No 1 No I We are very particular on 
that point." (Life of the Prince Consort, vol. ii., p. 427.) 



PALMEESTON AND THE COURT. 141 

execution was imminent, was exceedingly inefficient in 
his defence ; and most people would probably have agreed 
with the comment in Macaulay's diary, " Palmerston is 
out. It was high time ; but I cannot help feeling 
sorry." 

The constitutional questions raised by the struggle 
between the Foreign Secretary and the Court were of a 
very complicated nature. Let us say at once that 
Lord Palmerston cannot be held to have been actuated 
by any deliberate disrespect for the Crown. His 
contention was this — that his experience in foreign 
affairs was more extended than that of Prince Albert, 
and that he might therefore claim an immunity from 
supervision in matters of detail, though he acknow- 
ledged that both the Crown and the Premier had a right 
to consider the draft of despatches upon matters of im- 
portance. He was also of opinion that the transmission 
of despatches involved great waste of time in cases of 
urgency, that tlieir alteration was frequently the cause of 
grave ambiguity of language, in short, that too many 
cooks spoil the broth. Such contentions are evidently 
of considerable force. But there can hardly be any 
doubt that Lord Palmerston really aimed at a far greater 
measure of independence than he professed ; that if he 
had been able to get his own way, he would have 
secured the im'periiim in imperio of Lord Melbourne's 
time ; and that, failing to get it by direct means, he had 
resort to subterfuges and neglects of duty, the ultimate 
object of which was to steal a march upon his Sovereign 
and colleagues when they happened to disagree with 
him. 

On the other hand, it is impossible not to see that the 
Court, through want of judgment, by no means adopted 
the most straightforward means of reconciling their 



142 LIFE OF VISCOUNT FALMEBSTON. 

views with those of the Foreign Secretary. Instead of 
encouraging him to lay his opinions freely before them 
in frequent interviews and direct intercourse, they treated 
him with distrust and appeared to shun his society. 
The interposition of Lord John Russell was invoked, the 
arrangement being that '* the despatches submitted for 
(the Queen's) approval must pass through the hands of 
Lord John Russell, who, if he should think that they 
required any material change, should accompany them 
with a statement of his reasons." To the transmission 
through the Prime Minister Lord Palmerston agreed ; 
and the fact says volumes for his generous and loyal 
disposition. For if the arrangement had been carried 
out to the letter, the result would have been, that while 
the Foreign Secretary prepared the drafts, they would 
have been discussed and settled between the Prime 
Minister and the Sovereign."^ He would thus have 
been reduced from a confidential servant of the Crown, 
to the position of a mere clerk, indeed his position 
would have become almost intolerable for a man of any 
self-respect. Even with the most delicate treatment, the 
system could hardly fail to create and perpetuate a feel- 
ing of antagonism between the Prime Minister and the 
head of the Foreign Departoient, and it should certainly 
never have been proposed to Lord Palmerston as a law 
of conduct. Though approved by Lord John, it seems 
to have been almost entirely the work of Stockmar, and 
expressive of the feelings of the Court. Fresh suspicion 
and confusion was the inevitable result ; and Lord 
Palmerston's admirers might fairly have advanced as an 
excuse for some of his escapades, that he was proscribed 
and subordinated to another, in a place where he had 
every right to play the part of a familiar friend. 

* Mr. Gladstone's Gleanings of Past Years, vol, i. p. 87. 



PALMEUSTON AND THE COUET. 143 

** There t&as a Palmerston," said Mr. Disraeli ; and 
Guizot, himself in exile, raised a Nunc dimittis when he 
heard of his enemy's overthrow. The memher for 
Tiverton bore his temporary adversity with that entire 
absence of rancour which is perhaps the most delightful 
trait in his fine nature. " Ah, how are you, Granville ? ^' 
he said to his successor; '* Well, you have got a very in- 
teresting office, but you will find it very laborious," and 
proceeded to give him every assistance in his power. 
There was no ill-feeling in his mind against the Court, 
though he imagined that they had been influenced by 
foreign, especially Orleanist, influences in his dismissal. 
This view he communicated to his brother without 
circumlocution, together with a curious story about 
a contemplated descent upon the French coast by 
the Orleanist princes, the Due d'Aumale and the 
Prince de Joinville, which he believed to have preci- 
pitated Napoleon^s coiqj d'etat, and which induced 
him to express his warm approval of that measure. 
Nor did he bear any unworthy resentment against 
)Lord John Eussell. According to Lord Shaftesbury, 
he never alluded to him but with a laugh, and 
** Oh, he's a foolish fellow, but we shall go on very well 
now." 

It is only fair then to consider that Palm^rston was 
not influenced by personal motives in his attack upon 
Lord John's Militia Bill, by which, within a very short 
space of time, he so signally avenged his own dismissal 
from office. " I have had my tit-for-tat with John 
Russell," he wrote to his brother, " and I turned him 
out on Friday last ''; but he hastened to add that his only 
object was to persuade the House to reject the feeble 
plan of the Government. Indeed, few statesmen of the 
day had taken more honourable interest in the state of 



lU LIFE OF VISCOUNT PALMFBSTON, 

our defences, or had spoken more frequently on the 
subject. A memorandum which he addressed to Lord 
Melbourne, set forth the liability of England to invasion 
with a fulness of knowledge that a military authority 
might envy. During Peel's ministry he had examined the 
Government on harbours and fortifications with a per- 
sistency which aroused the wrath of Cobden, and which 
calls forth the mirth of Cobden's biographer, Mr. John 
Morley. Nor can it be questioned that Palmerston's 
amendment, which made the militia generally instead of 
** locally " available, was a vast improvement to the 
measure. It might have been accepted by the ministry 
without loss of honour, and he suspected them of incur- 
ring the defeat because they were anxious to escape from 
the responsibility of carrying on the Government any 
longer. A passage in Lord John Russell's Hemmis- 
ccnces proves that the guess was correct. 

The tit-for-tat naturally drew attention once more to 
Palmerston's political isolation. In spite of his long 
service in the Whig ranks, he was still a political free 
lance ; and Lord Derby, to whom fell the formation of a 
ministry, thrice made overtures for his services ; in 
February 1852, again in July, and for a third time in 
December. All proposals were, however, declined, 
chiefly because of the Protectionist colour of the ad- 
ministration, though Palmerston gave valuable support 
to their Militia Bill, and even prolonged their existence 
at the opening of the new Parliament by bringing forward 
an amendment to Mr. Charles Villiers' free trade reso- 
lution which they were able to accept without loss of 
dignity. Conscious of his own strength, he was but 
little troubled by the gloomy looks of his former col- 
leagues, whom from time to time he treated rather un- 
kindly. When at the Tiverton hustings, the local orator 



PALMEBSTON AND THE COURT, 145 

the butcher, Eowcliffe, attempted to rally him on his 
position, Palmerston blandly replied that whatever Gro- 
vernment he meant to join, he would never join a 
Government called a RowclifFe Administration. His 
letters show that he was equally determined not to serve 
again under '* Johnny "; and the admission which he went 
on to make, that Johnny was not likely to serve under 
him, proves that he felt that his own hour was not yet 
come. There happened at this time to be a movemeat 
on foot among the Whigs for uniting the Liberal party 
under the eminently prudent leadership of Lord Lans- 
downe ; and though it was not initiated in any way by 
Palmerston, he gave it his cordial support. Age and 
ill-health, however, compelled Lord Lansdowne to deter- 
mine upon a ?folo ejnscopari ; and on the retirement of 
the Derby Ministry, Lord Aberdeen constructed a cabi- 
net of Peelites and Whigs, with Sir William Molesworth 
as the representative of Philosophic Radicalism. 



10 



146 LIFE OF VISCOUNT FALMEMSTON. 



CHAPTER TX. 

THE ABERDEEN MINISTET. 

1852-1855. 

Lord Palmerston at the Home Office — Legislation and Depntations— 
The Reform Bill — Temporary Resignation of Palmerston — Be- 
ginnings of the Eastern Question — -The Menschikoff mission- 
Lord Palmerston's policy — His popularity with the nation — The 
Vienna note — The Concert of the Powers — Palmerston's descrip- 
tion of the objects at issue — Declaration of war by Turkey — The 
Sinope disaster — Beginning of the war — The Napier banquet 
and its consequences — Proposal to make Palmerston Secretary at 
War — The Crimean expedition — Fall of the Ministry. 

In the Coalition Ministry Lord Palmerston, rather to 
the general surprise, was persuaded to take the Home 
Office. He did not yield until after considerable pres- 
sure had heen put upon him, conscious, perhaps, that 
he was open to a charge of inconsistency if he served 
under a premier whose continental policy he bad 
criticized so mercilessly. But the co-operation which 
he refused to Aberdeen was conceded to the solicita- 
tions of Lord Lansdowne, especially when he found 
that foreign affairs were to be in sound Whig hands. 
Palmerston chose the Home Office because it would 
bring him in contact with his fellow-countrymen, and 
would give him influence with regard to the militia and the 



THE ABERDEEN MINISTEY. 147 

national defences; and as Home Secretary he was a most 
unqualified success, ** I never knew any Home Secre- 
tary," wrote Lord Shaftesbury, "equal to Palmerston 
for readiness to undertake every good work of kindness, 
humanity, and social good, especially to the child and 
the working class. No fear of wealth, capital, or elec- 
tion terrors ; prepared at all times to run a tilt if he 
could do good by it. Has already done more good than 
ten of his predecessors." The Shaftesbury hall-mark 
was indeed to be seen in most of his measures, with the 
exception of the timely extinction of the Board of 
Health, which vexed the righteous soul of his relative. 
The Youthful Offenders' Bill gave Government aid to 
reformatory schools, and greatly increased their num- 
ber and efficiency ; the Factory Acts were amended for 
the benefit of children ; the institution of tickets-of-leave 
effected an admirable reform in the criminal system ; 
while attention was paid to the health of the people of 
London by measures for the abatement of the smoke 
nuisance, and for shutting up the graveyards within the 
metropolitan area. 

If Lord Palmerston's legislation was influenced by 
others, his manner of receiving deputations and answer- 
ing memorials was entirely his own. Mr. Evelyn Ash- 
ley records that when the people of Hugely wanted a 
new name for their town, which had acquired notoriety 
through having been the residence of the poisoner, 
Palmer, the Home Secretary asked them how his own 
name, " Palmerstown," would suit them. His answer 
to the Presbytery of Edinburgh, who requested that a 
national fast might be appointed on account of the visi- 
tation of the cholera, was even more Palmerstonian, and 
resulted, wrote Lord Shaftesbury, in his being regarded 
by the religious world as little better than an infideh 

10 * 



148 LIFE OF VISCOUNT PALMEB8T0N. 

The Maker of the Universe [he replied] has established certain laws 
of nature for the planet in which we live, and the weal or woe of man- 
kind dej^ends upon the observance or the neglect of these laws. One 
of these laws connects health with the absence of those gaseous exha- 
lations which proceed from overcrowded human dwellings, or from 
decomposing substances, whether animal or vegetable ; and those 
same laws render sickness the almost inevitable consequence of expo- 
sure to these noxious influences. But it has, at the same time, pleased 
Providence to place it within the power of man to make such arrange- 
ments, as will prevent or disperse such exhalations so as to render 
them harmless, and it is the duty of man to attend to those laws of 
nature and to exert the faculties which Providence has thus given to 
man for his own welfare. . . . When man has done the utmost for 
his own safetj^then is the time to invoke the blessing of Heaven to 
give effect to his exertions. 

During the existence of the unlucky Aberdeen Govern- 
ment, Lord Palmerston not unfreqiiently acted as chief 
of the ministerial party in the House of Commons, 
while Lord John Russell remained at Richmond, dis- 
gusted with the abnormal position of leader without 
office, which the rearrangement of the Cabinet had com- 
pelled him to accept. The Home Secretary's direction 
of the business of the House was thoroughly good- 
humoured and judicious ; even Greville is constrained 
to chronicle his great popularity with all sections of the 
political world. But within the Cabinet there was but 
little unanimity on any subject. The views of Lord 
John Russell and several of the Peelites, especially 
Lord Aberdeen and Sir John Graham, were far more 
advanced on the question of Reform than were those of 
Lord Palmerston and Lord Lansdowne, who disliked 
the thing itself, and more particularly Lord John's per- 
sistency in introducing a Reform Bill at a moment when 
the aspect of foreign affairs was menacing in the ex- 
treme. The Home Secretary swallowed his objections 
so far as to consent to serve on the committee of the 



THE ABERDEEN MINISTUT. 149 

Cabinet for the preparation of the proposed Bill. But 
when Lord John stated his scheme, Pahiierston, in a 
letter to Lord Lansdowne, raised a number of objec- 
tions, which, in the opinion of Lord Aberdeen, as ex- 
pressed in a letter dated the 14th of December, were 
** so serious as to strike at the most essential principles 
of the measure,^' and which were accordingly rejected 
by the Committee. Palmerston thereupon sent in his 
resignation, and was out of the Cabinet for ten days. 
The world naturally jumped to the conclusion that 
Reform was only a pretext, and that Palmerston had 
really resigned because of the want of vigour in the 
Eastern policy of the Cabinet. Mr. Ashley appears to 
countenance that idea, and Mr. Kinglake, going a step 
further, actually asserts that Lord Palmerston was 
** driven from o&iceJ' But a passage in one of Palmer- 
ston's letters to his brother-in-law, Mr. Sulivan, 
directly contradicts that view ; and no one who reads 
the correspondence between Lord Aberdeen and his dis- 
sentient colleague, published in the Quarterly Review 
of April 1877, can possibly doubt that the Reform 
Bill was the sole reason for Palmerston's resignation, 
though the reviewer's suggestion that he hoped that 
Lansdowne would also withdraw, and so break up the 
Cabinet, appears to be rather uncharitable. 

From the Malmesbury and Greville memoirs it may be 
gathered that both parties in the Cabinet, that of the 
Premier and the Home Secretary, were conscious of 
having made a mistake in failing to come to terms, and 
that a reconciliation was accordingly not difficult to 
arrange. Lord Palmerston's withdrawal of his resignation 
was accepted by the embarrassed Premier ; and the Home 
Secretary, though he was compelled for the moment to 
accept the obnoxious Bill, was eventually compensated 



150 LIFE OF VISCOUNT PALMFBSTON. 

by its abandonment in the face of the complete indif- 
ference of public opinion. 

All this while Lord Palmerston, though most con- 
scientious in his discharge of the duties of his multi- 
farious office, and most assiduous in his attendance at the 
House of Commons, was seldom absent in spirit from 
the shores of the Golden Horn and the banks of the 
Danube. Even Mr. Cobden himself could hardly 
have denied that the ex-Foreign Secretary, though he 
might be supposed to approach the Eastern Question 
with prejudice, brought to bear upon it at any rate 
a considerable amount of knowledge. Ever since 
1830 he had made an intricate study of Russian diplo- 
macy, and had watched the twists and turns of Russian 
statesmanship in crises as serious as that of 1840. He 
was yet at the Foreign Office v/hen, in 1850, the dis- 
pute concerning the guardianship of the Holy Places 
was revived by Louis Napoleon, as a distinct bid against 
Russia for paramount influence in the East; and he had 
been duly warned by our Minister at Constantinople, 
Lord Stratford de Redcliffe, that the question at issue^ 
though apparently trivial, might easily develop into one 
of most serious moment. At the outset he attempted to 
avert war by directing Lord Normanby to persuade the 
French Government to moderate its unreasonable de- 
mands in favour of the Latin Church. The Catholics 
in Turkey, he pointed out, were few in number, there 
were millions of Greeks ; Russia, the protectress of the 
latter, was a colossal power close on the Sultan's back; 
France, the advocate of the Catholics, was a long way 
off. 

As soon, however, as Prince Menschikoff's mission to 
Constantinople disclosed an entirely new programme of 
Russian aggression, namely, a claim to a protectorato 



THE ABERDEEN MINISTRY. 151 

over all the Greeks within the Turkish Empire, which 
was presented in the form of an ultimatum and sup- 
ported by military demonstrations on the Turkish fron- 
tier, Lord Palmerston's tone changed, and he advocated 
the answering of threat by threat. He was aware, as 
were the rest of the Ministry, that the Ozar had long 
ago told Sir Hamilton Seymour that tlie " sick man '^ 
was at the point of death, and that in the division of 
the inheritance, although he would not establish him- 
self at Constantinople as proprietor, '* as trustee — that 
he would not say." And though he was not privileged like 
Count Vitzthum to listen to the wild outbursts of the 
Czar against ces cliitns de TurcSy Palmerston must have 
been aware that the existence of the fatal agreement 
to recognise the Russian protectorship of the Greek reli- 
gion in Syria, between the autocrat on the one hand, 
and Peel, the Duke, and Aberdeen on the other,* would 
drive Nicholas to new acts of menace directly Lord 
Aberdeen returned to power. 

Palmerston's description of the methods of Russian 
encroachment is as true to day as it was when it was 
written : — 

The Russian Government [he -wrote to Lord Clarendon] has always 
had two strings to its bow — moderate language and disinterested pro- 
fessions at St. Petersburg and at London ; active aggression by its 
agents on the scene of operations If the aggression succeed locally, 
the St. Petersburg Government adopts them as a fait accompli which 
it did not intend but cannot in honour recede from. If the local 
agents fail, they are disavowed and recalled, and the language pre- 
viously held is appealed to as a proof that the agents have overstepped 
their instructions. 

When this system of mingled threats and caresses was 
followed by the occupation of the Principalities by a 
Russian army, Palmerston urged that the French and 
* Lord Malmesbury's Memoirs, vol. i. p. 402. 



152 LIFE OF VISCOUNT PALMEBSTOJSf. 

English fleets should at once be sent up to the Bos- 
phorus to encourage the Porte and give check to the 
Czar ; but the Aberdeen party in the Cabinet was too 
strong for him. Not that he was under the illusion that 
such a course of action would prevent war; on the 
contrary, he was of opinion that the Czar "was bent on 
a stand-up fight," and felt that to meet the enemy half- 
way was more consonant with the traditions of English 
statesmanship, and would be more popular with the 
country, than bated breath and whispered humbleness. 
" If he [the Emperor] is determined to break a lance 
with us," he wrote to Mr. Sidney Herbert, " why then, 
have at him, say I, and perhaps he may have enough 
of it before we have done with him." At the same time, 
he had taken the right measure of the man when he 
asserted that Nicholas was far more likely to yield to 
action than to argument. If the Czar had known the 
crossing of the Pruth would be made a casus belli, it 
was probably that he would have thought twice about 
crossing it; when once he had crossed the river, it was 
difficult to retreat without loss of honour at the bidding 
of any Power or any collection of Powers. 

Lord Palmerston had certainly interpreted the feeling 
of the country aright. Young England was actually 
eager for a war with Russia; and nearly everyone was of 
opinion that the extreme moderation of the English 
Government was not likely to gain its end, and that a 
bolder policy would more probably be crowned with 
success. Lord Palmerston was known to favour a vigo- 
rous conduct. Conscious, as he must have been of the 
immense power that he wielded as the people's man in an 
inharmonious administration, it is greatly to his credit 
that he did not attempt to force the hand of our Foreign 
Secretary, Lord Clarendon, during the anxious period 



' THE ABERDEEN MINISTItT, 163 

while it seemed as if peace might yet be achieved by 
diplomacy. He even went so far as to conceal his 
approbation on an occasion when Lord Clarendon sent 
particularly bold directions to Sir Hamilton Seymour, 
from fear lest words of praise from him whom men 
called *' Lord Firebrand," might make the Aberdeens 
and Grahams of the Cabinet think that they were com- 
mitted to some desperate adventure. In fact his relations 
with Clarendon were most harmonious, and there is no 
warrant for Greville's insinuation that he attempted to 
undermine his colleagues by keeping up a correspon- 
dence with Lord Stratford de Redcliffe. To the views 
of Prince Albert he paid far less deference, and wrote, 
doubtless with considerable gusto, a slashing commen- 
tary on the Prince's very sensible memorandum on 
Eastern Affairs, which was far more critical than candid, 
and which the Prime Minister subjected to a very un- 
favourable examination. 

Possibly the Home Secretary felt that when every 
concession on the part of England and France was 
followed by a fresh menace on the part of Russia, war, 
sooner or later, was inevitable ; and that it was unneces- 
sary to do more than record the fulfilment of his various 
prophecies. Even Lord Aberdeen's belief in the pacific 
intentions of the Emperor was shaken when, in return 
for our advice to the Porte not to make the occupation 
of the Principalities a castis belli, but to give diplomacy 
another chance, a circular was issued by Count Nessel- 
rode, in which that very occupation was declared to be 
in answer to the presence of the British and French 
squadrons outside the Dardanelles, where they had every 
right to be stationed. '* It is," wrote Palmerston, "the 
robber who declares that he will not leave the house 
until the policeman shall have first retired from the 



154 LIFE OF VISCOUNT PALMEESTON: 

back yard "; still be acquiesced in Lord Aberdeen's deci- 
sion tbat an expostulation would for tbe momeDt be 
enougb. His opinion of tbe Vienna Note is not on 
record. But, if we may judge by bis advice on subse- 
quent diplomatic attempts to create a modus vivendi 
between Russia and tbe Porte, be disapproved of tbe 
vague language of tbe document wbicb was so signally 
turned to good account by Count Nesselrode, and 
agreed with Lord Stratford in countenancing tbe rigbt 
of tbe Sultan to amend tbe note in bis favour. It 
was unjust, be contended, later on, to attempt to impose 
a form of words on Turkey wbicb we were not equally 
prepared to impose on Russia. 

The chief blot on tbe system of action advocated by 
Lord Palmerston, was tbat it was adapted rather to a 
question in wbicb England was acting single-handed, 
than to one in which it was necessary to pay con- 
siderable deference to the wishes of the other Powers. 
He seems to have put his trust entirely in that Anglo- 
French Alliance, of which by his approbation of tbe 
coup d'etat be bad been tbe creator, and to have paid small 
regard to tbe moral support of Austria and Prussia. It 
is true that in his public utterances, Lord Palmerston, 
wishing, no doubt, to put a stop to tbe stories of 
ministerial differences that were flying about, laid con- 
siderable stress upon the value of the European concert. 
"I believe," he said on Feb. 20tb. 1854, "1 shall not 
overstate the truth when I say that tbe conduct of Eng- 
land and France in tbat respect has been thoroughly 
appreciated by Austria and by Prussia ; whereas if 
matters had been hurried on in the course of Inst 
summer, when we might have had no reason or right to 
expect their co-operation, I cannot persuade myself that 
the conduct of Austria and Prussia would have been the 



THE ABERDEEN MINISTRY. 155 

same as it is at the present time.'^ But tliough the 
voice was the voice of Palmerston, the; arguments were 
the arguments of Aberdeen ; and the Home Secretary 
was more in his element when he pro(;eeded to describe 
the objects at issue. 

All the Powers [he said] have acknowledged in the most solemn and 
distinct manner that the independence and integrity of the Turkish 
Empire is an essential condition for the maintenance of the peace of 
Europe, that it is an essential element in the balance of power, and 
that it would be a calamity to Europe if any attempt was mude to 
destroy that integrit}^ and independence. Why, even Russia, while 
she is pursuing the course which is acknowledged by all, except her- 
self, to be fatal to that independence — even Russia does not venture to 
deny that principle that the integrity and independence of the Turkish 
Empire is an essential element and condition of the welfare of Europe. 
Now, Sir, it is manifest that if Russia were to appropriate these terri- 
tories now under the sway and sovereignty of the Sultan, she would 
become a power too gigantic for the safety of the other states of 
Europe. Bestriding the continent from north to south, possessing the 
command of two seas, the Baltic and the Mediterranean, enveloping 
the whole of Germany, embracing regions full of every natural re- 
source, and with a population of enormous extent, she would become 
dangerous to the liberties of Europe, and her power would be fatal to 
the independence of other states. I say, therefore, it is the duty of the 
other countries of Europe to prevent such enormous aggrandizement 
of one Power as that which would result from such a change. 

The declaration of war by Turkey, after the failure of 
the Vienna Note had shown that the hour for the con- 
flict of pens had gone by, was considered by Palmerston 
to be not unnatural and not unwise. He was equally 
pleased with the successive decisions of the Cabinet to 
give material support to Turkey : that of September by 
which Lord Stratford was authorized to summon the 
fleet to the Bosphorus, that of October by which he was 
permitted to direct defensive operations in the Black 
Sea. We had now crossed the Rubicon, Lord Palmer- 
ston considered, and had taken Turkey by the hand; he 
pooh-poohed, as has been mentioned above, the Prince 



156 LIFE OF VISCOUNT PALMEBSTON, 

Consort's memorandum, in which a fear was expressed 
lest the Turks were seeking " to obtain for themselves 
the power of imposing a most oppressive rule of two 
millions of fanatic Mussulmans over twelve millions of 
Christians," and argued that — 

No peace can be concluded between the contending parties unless 
the Emperor consents to evacuate the Principalities, to abandon his 
demands, and to renounce some of the embarrassing stipulations of 
former treaties upon -which he has founded the pretensions which have 
been the cause of existing diflSculties. 

This was a well-defined position with a vengeance ; 
but it had the merit of making the war something better 
than a mere querelle d'Alleinandy and answers the objec- 
tions of historians like Mr. Spencer Walpole, who urge 
that the Crimean campaign was unnecessary after the re- 
tirement of the Russian troops from the Principalities. 
On the following day came the news of the destruc- 
tion of the Turkish fleet at Sinope, that untoward 
event which more than any other precipitated the war; 
and it is to be noted that the British Cabinet, by way of 
reprisal, agreed to the proposal of the French Emperor 
that the combined squadrons should not merely enter the 
Black Sea but *' invite " every Eussian vessel they met 
to return to Sebastopol, during the period of Palmer- 
ston's absence from office. So that the blame, if blame 
there be, for the actual commencement of hostilities 
rests, not on the man who believed them from the first 
to be inevitable, but upon his colleagues, including those 
who had been most inclined to throw cold water on his 
bold counsels in the past. 

The war was unavoidable ; it was, to use a happy ex- 
pression of the Prince Consort's, a '* vindication of the 
public law of Europe '*; but it was a serious matter, and 
sliould not have been regarded by any responsible states- 
man with a light heart. Probably Lord Palmerston did 



THE ABERDEEN MINISTRY, 157 

appreciate its gravity; but the outside world was not 
allowed to suspect the fact, and his public utterances on 
the eve of its declaration were couched in a tone of 
flippancy and jocularity which, though possibly intended, 
as Mr. Ashley suggests, to keep up the heart and spirit 
of the nation, can hardly be read now without a feeling 
of irritation and regret. On March 7th, Lord Palmerston 
presided over a banquet given at the Reform Club to Sir 
Charles Napier, previous to his departure to take com- 
mand of the Baltic fleet. Of his essentially after-dinner 
remarks, and the rather small jokes with which they 
were interspersed, it is unnecessary to reproduce any 
specimens here ; but it is fair to mention that they were 
discretion itself when compared with the utterances of 
Sir James Graham, who was also present in the capacity 
of First Lord of the Admiralty. When taken to task a 
few days later by Mr. Bright, in the House of Commons, 
Lord Palmerston made a still sorrier exhibition of him- 
self, and for once in his life gave vent to some ill- 
natured remarks. Mr. Bright, according to Lord 
Shaftesbury, was one of the few men whom he really 
regarded as an enemy ; and a desire to pay oflF old scores 
was probably his motive for beginning his answer with 
" The honourable and reverend gentleman," and con 
tinning, *' I am further convinced that the opinion of the 
country with regard to me and my conduct will in no 
way whatever be influenced by anything which the hon. 
gentleman may say. I therefore treat the censure of 
the hon. gentleman with the most perfect indifl'erence 
and contempt." Mr. Disraeli did well to complain 
during this period of the ** patrician bullying of the 
Treasury bench." 

Fortunately for himself and the Ministry, Lord Pal- 
merston's outbursts against the Peace Party were limited 



158 LIFE OF VISCOUNT PALMEBSTON. 

in number, and that Party Imd become so thoroughly out 
of favour with the nation on account of t,he vehemence 
with which it published its views, that people were in- 
clined to condone expressions of asperity against its 
members. His popularity does not seem to have been 
shaken by the Napier banquet and its consequences. And 
public opinion marked him out so distinctly as the man 
in whose hands should be plac(!d the conduct of military 
operations, that his old opponent Lord John Russell, 
when he proposed to Lord Aberdeen in November that 
the unwieldy arrangement then in existence should be 
abolished, and the offices of Secretary at War and 
Secretary /b/* War united in the same person, designated 
Lord Palmerston as the most fitting man in the Cabinet 
to fill the onerous position. However, the Premier 
refused to entertain the idea out of consideration for the 
feelings of the Duke of Newcastle, who was at the head 
of the War Department, and finally Palmerston himself 
vetoed the plan. Whether a change of men would have 
permanently checked the prevalent mismanagement, may 
be doubted ; for, as Lord Palmerston pointed out at the 
beginning of the next session, it was the system more 
than the Duke of Newcastle that was at fault ; still it 
would certaiwly have been one for the better, and would 
have been decidedly popular. 

Even though he did not direct operations in person, 
Palmerston's word had weighty influence on the progress 
of the war. He urged all along that it was not enough 
to drive the Eussians back from the Danube, as the 
Turks were doing without allied assistance; but that 
there must be " security for the future " — it was Pittas 
phrase — against the repetition of the Russian attack, and 
that the only way of obtaining that security was to strike 
the Empire of the Czar in a vital part. The scheme for 



THE ABERDEEN MINISTRY, 169 

tlie invasion of the Crimea did not originate with Pal- 
merston, for it seems to have heen hatched by the mucli- 
contrivittg mind of the Emperor of the French ; but he 
was its most powerful advocate, and reduced it from a vague 
sketch to a proposition of practical value. "The capture of 
Sebastopol and the Russian Black Sea fleet," he wrote, 
*' would be a lasting and important advantage to us. 
Such a success would act with great weight upon the 
fortunes of the war and would tell essentially upon the 
negotiations for peace." 

These were considerations which would weigh chiefly 
with statesmen ; military men naturally considered the 
question from a military point of view, and it is one of 
the commonplaces of history that both Lord Raglan and 
Marshal St. Arnaud were opposed to the campaign. 
At the same time the prosaic but inexorable logic of 
facts points to the conclusion that Lord Palraerston 
was right and Lord Raglan wrong. Granting the 
necessity of striking at a vital part of the Russian 
Empire, it was impossible to strike elsewhere, the opera- 
tions in the Baltic having failed, than in the Crimea. 
Had Lord Raglan not been overruled, and had an attack 
in force been made on Sebastopol immediately after the 
Alma, there can be no doubt that the campaign would 
have been one of weeks instead of months. Lastly, 
it was the fall of Sebastopol alone that broke the spirit 
of Russia and made a durable peace possible. 

The adventure miscarried at first, however, and the 
Aberdeen Ministry fell long before the Malakoff. When 
Lord John Russell's factious resignation, in the teeth 
of Mr. Roebuck's motion of inquiry, rendered a speedy 
termination of the existence of the Coalition Administra- 
tion inevitable, Palmerston, its most popular member, 
made its funeral speech. His most significant re- 



160 LIFE OF VISCOUNT PALMFE8T0N. 

mark was that he trusted that at least the dissensions 
which prevailed might be confined to the overthrowing 
of the Government; and that whatever Government 
might succeed, we should not exhibit to Europe the 
melancholy spectacle of a country interrupting by party 
and political struggles the conduct of great national 
interests. To the discredit of our party system this 
dignified appeal was speedily forgotten. Few Opposi- 
tions have been more given over to faction, and less 
awake to the true interests of the nation, than that 
against which Lord Palmerston had to contend when he 
undertook to restore the fallen fortunes of his country, 
and to raise her once more to her true place among the 
States of Europe. 



161 



CHAPTER X. 

THE CONCLUSION OF THE EUSSIAN WAR. 

1855-1856. 

Attempts to form a Ministry — Lord Palmerston accepts the task — 
His difficulties — Darkness of the prospect — Harmony of the Cabi- 
net — Lord Palmerston's tactics — The second Vienna Conference — 
The Austrian compromise — Conclusion of the war — The Congress 
of Paris — The Treaty — Lord Palmerston receives the Garter. 

When the Coalition Cabinet fell, amidst a chorus of 
derisive laughter at the completeness of its defeat, the 
popular voice loudly called for Lord Palmerston to take 
command of the ship of State and bring her through 
the storm. The mandate which summoned Pitt to 
supplant Addington in 1804 was hardly more imperious 
than that which in 1855 designated Palmerston as the 
successor of Aberdeen. Several weeks earlier that 
well-informed observer, Mr. Greville, had seen in the 
Home Secretary's improved position at Court the re- 
moval of the most serious obstacle between him and 
the Premiership. Lord Palmerston was, in fact, as he 
himself wrote to his brother, V inevitable ; and he added 
the happy quotation. 

Quod nemo promittere Divum 
Auderet, yolvenda dies eu attulit ultro. 

11 



162 LIFE OF VISCOUNT PALMEFSTOK 

Derby and his followers, however, formed the principal 
part of the majority which had turned out the Govern- 
ment ; and the Queen, true to constitutional principles, 
summoned him to Windsor. The Tory chief sought the 
support of Lord Palmerston, to whom he offered the 
leadership of the House of Commons, which Mr. Dis- 
raeli was ready to surrender. His first answer appears 
to have been not unfavourable. But when the decided 
refusals of Mr. Gladstone and Mr. Sidney Herbert to 
take office, and finally of Lord Clarendon to join a 
Conservative ministry as Foreign Secretary, showed 
that he would have to go over to the Conservatives 
alone, he determined to decline the proposal, and Lord 
Derby, greatly to the disgust of his followers, gave 
up the attempt. Lord Lansdowne's and Lord John 
Russell's efforts were even shorter lived. The former 
statesman could only be induced to undertake the 
Premiership for a few months ; and Lord John, though 
Palmerston, at the especial request of the Queen, mag- 
nanimously promised him support, soon discovered that 
his recent displays of faction had so cofupletely dis- 
gusted even his old Whig colleagues that he was in the 
position of a general without an army, and after less 
than forty-eight hours he too was compelled to retire. 
Uinevitable then came to the rescue, his way having 
been made smooth for him by the representations of 
Lord Clarendon to the Queen ; and the question, " How 
is the Queen's Government to be carried on ? " always 
momentous, and during a European war a matter of 
life or death, was at length answered to the general 
satisfaction as far as the Premiership was concerned."^ 

* The first Palmerston Cabinet was composed as f ollo-ws : — 
Viscount Palmerston, First Lord of the Treasury 
Lord Cranworth, Lord Chancellor. 



CONCL USION OF THE B USSIAN WAE. 163 

It was not without considerable difficulty that Lord 
Palmerston succeeded in forming an administration. 
The Whigs were ready enough to join him, but the good 
offices of Lord Aberdeen had to be brought into play 
before the Peelites would consent to become members 
of a Government which they feared would be animated 
with too unreasonable a spirit towards negotiations for 
peace. The Ministry in its first form practically con- 
sisted of the " old lot," minus Lord Aberdeen, the 
Duke of Newcastle, and Lord John Kussell, and pro- 
bably, as a whole, commanded but little confidence. 
In fact, the speedy resignation of the Peelites, through 
Mr. Roebuck's persistance in his motion of inquiry, was 
really, in the long run, a gain — for what was lost in 
talent was gained in unity of action, and the possibly 
discordant effect of the accession of Lord John Rus- 
sell, was neutralised by his having already accepted the 
appointment of Plenipotentiary at the Conference at 
Vienna. Still the delay in forming a Cabinet can 
hardly have been without its disquieting effect^ a feel- 
Earl Granville, President of the Council. 

Duke of Argyll, Lord Privy Seal. 

Earl of Clarendon, Foreign Secretary. 

Sir G. Grey, Home Secretary. 

Mr. Sidney Herbert, and on his resignation, Lord John Eussell, 
Colonial Secretary. 

Mr. Gladstone, and on his resignation, Sir G. Cornewall Lewis 
Chancellor of the Exchequer. 

Lord Panmure, Secretary at War. 

Sir C. Wood, Board of Control. 

Sir James Graham, and, on his resignation, Sir C. Wood, who 
was replaced at the Board of Control by Mr. Vernon Smith, 
First Lord of the Admiralty. 

Lord Harrowby, Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster. 

Viscount Canning, Postmaster-General. 

Sir W. Molesworth, First Commissioner of Works. 

Marquis of Lansdowne, without office. 

11 * 



1G4 LIFE OF VISCOUNT PALMFB8T0N. 

ing which was increased by the confusion which 
accompanied the minor appointments. The Premier's 
cheerful acceptance of the situation was highly charac- 
teristic : " Ha, ha! '^ he laughed, " a comedy of errors." 
It was a dark hour in the history of the nation 
when Lord Palmerston essayed the task which had been 
abandoned by the tried wisdom of Derby, Lansdowne, 
and John Kussell. Far away in the Crimea the war 
was dragging on without much hope of a creditable 
solution, though the winter of discontent and mis- 
management was happily over. The existence of the 
European concert was merely nominal. The Allies had 
discovered, many months previously, that though 
Austria was staunch, Prussia was a faithless friend ; 
and there were even alarms that Frederick William 
might be dragged by his family connections, and by 
what Mr. Kinglake happily calls his *' collection of 
fears," into a Russian alliance. Between the belli- 
gerent powers the cloud of suspicion and distrust grew 
thicker ; for Abd-el-Medjid was known to be freely 
squandering his war loans on seraglios and palaces 
while Kars was starving ; and though there was no 
reason for distrusting the present good faith of the 
Emperor of the French, his policy was straightforward 
only as long as he kept himself free from the influence 
of the gang of stock-jobbers and adventurers who com- 
posed his Ministry. Nor was the horizon much 
brighter on the side of England. A series of weak 
cabinets, and the absence of questions of organic 
reform, had completely relaxed the bonds of Party. 
If there was no regular Opposition, still less was 
there a regular majority ; and the temper of the House 
of Commons was seen in its ungracious and almost 
jeering refusal of the Premier's request that the in- 



CONCL USION OF THE B USSIAN WAR. 165 

quiry into the conduct of the war, moved for by Mr. 
Roebuck, should be postponed. And the hand that was 
to restore order out of chaos was not so steady as 
of yore. Whether from temporary ill-health or from the 
worry consequent on forming the administration, there 
can be no doubt that Lord Palmerston was not himself 
during the first weeks of his leadership. 

But the prospect speedily brightened. Though Pal- 
merston was considerably over seventy, he still retained 
a wonderful vigour of constitution. He was soon 
restored to health, and was always to be found at his 
post. At least, he had not to contend with divided 
counsels, for the first Palmerston Cabinet, though per- 
haps not remarkable in point of ability, seems to have 
worked very smoothly. The Prime Minister was of 
course an ideal colleague, and retained to the last those 
qualities of courage, resource, good-tempei', indifference 
to abuse, and steadiness to his friends, which Lord 
Brougham has described him as exercising in the Grey 
Cabinet.* Of the new men, by far the greatest acqui- 
sition was Sir George Cornewall Lewis, who, though 
absolutely inexperienced, had talents and business ap- 
titudes which enabled him to fill with credit the office 
of Chancellor of the Exchequer, even though he had 
been preceded by a magician of finance like Mr. Glad- 
stone. Of the old hands. Lord Lansdowne brought 
with him the authority of a Nestor, and, according to 
Mr. Hayward, aided the Premier in giving tone to the 
Cabinet discussions. But of all that sat round the 
council-table, the most valuable ally was unquestionably 
Lord Clarendon. The Foreign Secretary told Greville 
that nothing could be more harmonious than his relations 

•Lord Br ot (ham's Life and Times, vol. iii., p. 467. "I never 
knew," he "write'S. ■' a man wliom it was more agreeable to act with." 



166 LIFE OF VISCOUNT PALMERSTON. 

with the Premier; and if Lord Palmerston is to be 
bJamed for his insubordination to Melbourne and Rus- 
sell, it is only fair to remember that he allowed his 
own Foreign Secretaries the utmost latitude of action. 
Lord Clarendon's chief service was that of keeping the 
Premier on good terms with the Queen, " always telling 
her everything likely to ingratiate Palmerston with her, 
and showing her any letters or notes of his calculated to 
please her," as Greville says ; and his management of 
foreign affairs was characterised by a conciliatory firm- 
ness which was of incalculable value at a period when 
fretfulness and discontent were rife in courts and em- 
bassies. 

Though the supporters of the Government were luke- 
warm, the divided state of the Opposition gave peculiar 
opportunities to a statesman who possessed, in a degree 
excelled perhaps only by Pitt and Disraeli, the arts of 
Parliamentary management. If a tenth of the stories 
that are told of Lord Palmerston's consummate general-, 
ship, of the supreme skill with which he seized on the 
exact moment for summing-up the debate and taking 
the division, are true ; he must have been in his element 
in the guerilla warfare which was the chief feature of 
the Sessions of 1855 and 1856. A young tactician 
would have been confused by having to resist an attack 
from the Conservatives, on one day, on the ground that 
the Government was entertaining overtures for peace 
which were dishonourable; from the Peace party, on the 
next, because they did not bring the war to an immediate 
termination ; but not so Lord Palmerston. He turned 
his heaviest guns on the Conservatives, and paid little 
or no attention to the Peace party, knowing well enough 
that they were wholly out of sympathy with the country. 
" I cannot reckon Cobden, Bright, and Co. for any- 



CONGL USION OF THE B USSIAN WAR. 167 

thing/' he wrote to Sir Hamilton Seymour, and Mr. 
John Morley acknowledges the justice of the estimate. 
When, however, the Peelites, and notably Mr. Glad- 
stone, who had been partners in the declaration of war, 
threw themselves with great inconsistency into the arms 
of the Peace party, Lord Palmerston saw that the time 
for resolute action had come. His reply to a speech of 
Mr. Gladstone's, made on the 30th of July, in depre- 
cation of the continuance of war, was crushing in the 
extreme. 

No man [he said] could have been a party to entering into the 
great contest in which we are engaged — no man at least ought to have 
been a party to such a course of policy — without having deeply 
weighed the gravity of the struggle into which he was about to plunge 
the country, and without having satisfied his mind that the cause 
was just, that the motives were sufHcient, and that the sacrifices 
which he was calling upon the country to make were such as a states- 
man might consider it ought to endure. Sir, there must indeed be 
grave reasons which could induce a man who had been a party with 
Her Majesty's Government to that line of policy, who had assisted 
in conducting the war, who had after full and perhaps unexampled 
deliberation agreed to enter upon the war, who, having concurred after 
that full and mature deliberation in the commencement of the war, 
had also joined in calling upon the country for great sacrifices i:i 
order to continue it, and who had, up to a very recent period, as- 
sented to all the measures proposed for its continuance ; I say, there 
must, indeed, be grave reasons which could induce a man, who had 
been so far a party to the measures of the Government, utterly to 
change his opinions, to declare the war unnecessary, unjust, and im- 
politic, to set before the country all the imaginary dangers with which 
his fancy could supply him, and to magnify and to exaggerate the force 
of the enemy and the difficulties of our position. 

His generalship secured ample majorities for the 
Government in every division during the- session. 

Of the energy wliioh Lord Palmerston inspired into 
the operations against Sebastopol, there can hardly be 
two opinions. He may not have been a Chatham ; but 
a letter of his to Lord Panmure, quoted by Mr. Ashley, 



168 LIFE OF VISCOUNT PALMEBSTON. 

proves at any rate that he paid attention to every de- 
tail, and adopted no penny wise measures for raising 
troops. The addition of the Sardinian contingent to 
the fighting strength of the Allies had been a very solid 
gain ; Palmerston wished to enlist in addition Germans, 
Swiss, and Italians. Even more creditable were his 
precautions for the health of the troops; and his re- 
presentations to Lord Kaglan, to prevent the Sanitary 
Commission despatched to the Crimea from being 
thwarted in their recommendations and directions, were 
most peremptory. No; it is not for being laggard in 
war that Lord Palmerston can be reproached, but, if at 
all, for obstinacy in continuing the war. Little excep- 
tion can be taken to his description of the designs of 
Russia : — 

I say the intention of Russia to portion Turkey is manifest as the 
Bun at noon-day, and it is to prevent that that we are contending. 
That is the object of the war, and not only to defend Turkey, the weak 
against the strong, but to avert injury and danger from ourselves. Let 
no man imagine, that if Turkey were destroyed by Russia, and that 
gigantic power stride like a Colossus from the Baltic on the one hand 
to the Mediterranean on the other, let no man suppose the great inte- 
rests of this country would not be in peril; let not the peace-at-any- 
price party imagine that their interest will not be deeply injured. 

But the point at issue is whether the terms proposed 
by Austria at the second Vienna Conference were suf- 
ficiently binding to secure a permanent peace by safe- 
guarding the integrity of the Ottoman Empire. Now 
there was considerable doubt at the outset as to the 
motives of the Austrian Government; the Emperor 
was well disposed, but the Allies wanted something 
more substantial than moral support. It was shrewdly 
suspected that the chief reason for the assembling of 
the Conference at Vienna was that the remonstrances 



CONGL USION OF THE E USSIAN WAR. 169 

of the Western Powers had become inconveniently 
frequent there."^ And when the Kussian conditions of 
peace came to be considered, they were found to be 
highly unsatisfactory by the French and English Go- 
vernments. Of the " four points," propounded by the 
Western Powers, the first, second, and fourth, namely, 
the continued subjection of the Principalities to the 
Sultan, who, however, was to grant them autonomy ; 
the free navigation of the Danube ; and the independence 
of the Porte, were never seriously objected to by the 
Russian Plenipotentiary, Prince Gortschakoff. The dis- 
cussions were almost entirely on the third point, the 
abrogation of the Russian supremacy in the Black 
Sea. The Western Powers demanded the neutral- 
isation of the Black Sea, or a limitation of the 
number of Russian and Turkish ships of war. 
Prince Gortschakoff rejected any limitation of the 
Russian navy as an insult, and proposed plans 
based on the system of counterpoise which the Allies 
at once declared to be inadmissible. It was evident 
that, unless the Conference was to be whoUj sterile, a 
compromise must be struck out by Austria, the Power 
which occupied a quasi-mediatorial position. Her first 
Plenipotentiary, Count Buol, therefore proposed that 
Russia should agree to maintain the naval status quo 
of 1853 ; and that each of the Western Powers should 
be entitled to station two frigates in the Black Sea, in 
order to see that Russia did not increase her fleet. At 
the same time Austria promised to consider it a casus 
belli if Russia set on float a single ship on the Euxine 
more than in 1853, and Count Buol agreed that the 

* These suspicions were probably unfounded. See the well-consi- 
dered defence of AvTstrian statesmanship in Mr Kinglake's last 
volume. 



170 LIFE OF VISCOUNT PALMEBSTON. 

proposal should be made to Russia in the form of an 
ultimatum. 

As is well known, this compromise was accepted by 
the first English and French plenipotentiaries, Lord 
John Eussell and M. Drouyn de Lhuys, but they were 
disavowed by their respective Governments; the French- 
man resigned immediately, Lord John remained Colonial 
Secretary until threatened by a vote of censure. The 
Austrian compromise was indeed in itself the sorriest 
make-shift, though Austrian intervention in the war, in 
the event of its being rejected by Russia, would have been 
extremely valuable to the Allies. It simply legalised the 
prejwnderance which had existed before 1854, for the 
police espionage to be exercised by France and England 
would have been both costly and vexatious, and the 
idea that Austria would ever come to the assistance of 
the Allies was, in reality, as Lord Palmerston wrote to 
the Queen, a mockery. '* What reason," he remarked, 
*'is there for supposing that Austria, who has recently 
declared that, though prepared for war, she will not 
make war for ten sail-of-the-line more or less in the 
Russian Black Sea fleet, will some few years hence, 
when unprepared for war, draw the sword on account of 
the addition of one ship-of-war to that fleet?' * 

The second Vienna Conference, if it failed to produce 
a cessation of hostilities, had at least the merit that it 
laid plainly before the world the irreducihle minimum 
of the British demands. And when negotiations were 
resumed once more, this time to be brought to a suc- 
cessful conclusion, the five points guided the delibera- 

* These objections to the Austrian compromise appear to have been 
overlooked by Mr. Kinglake, who has recently declared himself in 
its favour. But his explanation of Lord John Russell's motives for 
retaining o£Bce is thoroughly convincing. 



CONCLUSION OF THE RUSSIAN WAB. 171 

tions of the Congress of Paris, and formed the bases of 
the settlement. In the interval the tendency of events 
had been steadily in the direction of peace. There was 
no abatement in the spirit of the nation, or in its readi- 
ness to make sacrifices in the cause of honour. Even 
after the fall of Sebastopol there were many, and Lord 
Derby was the most eloquent exponent of their views, 
who, not content with having brought Russia upon her 
knees, would have laid her on her back. It is more 
than probable that, in his inmost soul, Lord Pulmerston 
held those views, and trusting in the unimpaired re- 
sources of the country, would have liked to risk another 
campaign in the hope that one of its incidents would be 
the taking of Cronstadt. It is possible to read between 
the lines of his letter to the Queen congratulating her 
upon the tidings that the Czar had accepted the new 
Austrian proposals, though they were propounded in the 
especially humiliating form of an ultimatum, the rejec- 
tion of which would be followed by the appearance of 
Austria in the arena. 

Viscount Palmerston [he wrote] fully concurs in the sentiment of 
regret expressed by Your Majesty to Lord Clarendon, that the last 
action of the war in which Your Majesty's troops have been engaged 
should, if peace be now concluded, have been the repulse at the 
Redan; but, however, it may suit national jealousy, which will always 
be found to exist on the other side of the Channel, to dwell on that 
check, yet Your Majesty may rely upon it that Alma and Inkermann 
have left recollections which will dwell in the memory of the living, 
and not to be forgotten in the page of history ; and although it 
would no doubt be gratifying to Your Majesty and the nation that 
another summer should have witnessed the" fulfilment of the measures 
contemplated for the next campaign," yet if peace can now be secured 
on conditions honourable and secure, it would, as Your Majesty justly 
observes, not be right to continue the war for the mere pui'poses of 
prospective victories. 

Count Vitzthum, writing many years afterwards, even 
asserts that Lord Clarendon actually confided to him 



172 LIFE OF VISCOUNT PALMEBSTON, 

that he went to Paris with express instructions from 
Lord Palmerston not to allow peace to be made. But 
the anecdote is almost certainly an unconscious exag- 
geration. For we have Mr. Greville's express evidence to 
the contrary, when he says, on the authority of Sir 
George Cornewall Lewis, that Lord Clarendon, who was 
decidedly a man of peace, was not harassed by any 
instructions, but left entirely to his own discretion ; and 
liOrd Clarendon himself denied in the House of Lords 
that the negotiations were insincere. Besides, Lord 
Palmerston was far too sane to insist on war to extinc- 
tion, when, with the exception of little Sardinia, we had 
not an ally who could be counted upon. For the fall of 
Kars had shown that the valour of Turkish soldiers 
was counterb.alanoed by the corruption of the Turkish 
Government; and though the good understanding be- 
tween the French and English courts was complete, the 
Emperor had been completely converted to the side of 
peace through the exhaustion of his country, the em- 
barrassment of his finances, and the unpopularity of the 
war with all sections of the French community. 

" So much for the capitulation of Paris," said Lord 
Derby ; and a witty French diplomatist, M. de Bour- 
queney, declared that from an inspection of the treaty 
it was impossible to discover which were the conquerors 
and which the conquered. But both remarks are far 
more clever than true, and in spite of the somewhat 
captious objections of the Tory chief, the Peace of 
Paris may fairly be pronounced an arrangement which 
was honourable to England, and which had in it every ele- 
ment of stability. To Lord Clarendon and Lord Cowley, 
who conducted the negotiations with the utmost tact 
and vigour, though they had to contend with the open 
coalition of the French and Russian envoys at the 



CONCLUSION OF TEE RUSSIAN WAB. 173 

council-table, and the lukewarmness of Austria, belongs 
almost entirely the credit for the terms that were ob- 
tained. But to Lord Palmerston must at least be attri- 
buted a steady support of their representations, and 
unselfish acquiescence in their decisions, though he was 
himself in favour of the exaction of harder conditions. 
" Kussia is humiliated," said Baron Briinnow, '* and she 
is about to sign a treaty such as she has never signed 
before." He probably spoke in all sincerity, for never 
in the whole course of her history as a nation had 
Russia been compelled to consent to the surrender of 
territory; and the indignity was the greater because 
the cession of Bessarabia was made at the demand of 
non-belligerent Austria. The main object for which 
England had been fighting, ** security for the future," 
was more than obtained by the restoration of Kars to 
the Sultan, the destruction of the fortifications of 
Sebastopol, the "efficacious assurance'* of the free 
navigation of the Danube, the continuance of the Prin- 
cipalities under the suzerainty of the Porte, the under- 
standing that no Power had a right to interfere in the 
internal administration of the Turkish Empire, and the 
neutralisation of the Black Sea to ships of war and 
military arsenals. It is true that the last condition was 
abrogated by Prince Gortschakoff's action in 1870 ; but 
what Russia may have gained in material strength by con- 
verting the Euxine into a private lake, she lost through 
the feeling of universal distrust which her conduct in- 
spired throughout Europe. Besides, the Peace of Paris 
secured for the Ottoman Empire a freedom from external 
complications for twenty years, during which time.it was 
not altogether ultra-Utopian to hope that it would take 
some measures for its own regeneration. And wlien at 
last the struggle began afresh, and the Russian eagles 



174 LIFE OF VISCOUNT PALMEBSTON. 

drew near the city of Constantine, it was, as Lord Pal- 
merston prophesied, the undyicg memory of the Alma 
and lukermann which forced her to pause at the gates. 
The conditions were, in fact, amply satisfactory to Eng- 
land and France without being oppressive to Russia; 
and the Queen was only expressing the feelings of the 
nation when she offered Lord Palmerston the Garter in 
recognition of the manner in which, under his guidance, 
the war had been brought to a conclusion, and the 
honour and interests of the country had been maintained 
by the Treaty of Paris. 



175 



CHAPTER XL 

WARS AND RUMOURS 03? WARS. 
1856-1859. 

Monotony of Home Affairs — Dispute with the United States — Russian 
chicanery — The Danubian Principalities — Egypt and the Suez 
Canal — Palmerston and Persigny — The Persian War — The 
"Arrow" Affair — The Dissolution and General Election — The 
Indian Mutiny — The Conspiracy to Murder Bill — Defeat of the 
Government. 

During the whole of Lord Palmerston's first admini- 
stration, foreign politics continued to absorb the atten- 
tion of Parliament and the press to the exclusion of 
home interests. With the exception of the storm in 
the teapot about the Wensleydale peerage, there was 
little to exercise the public mind until a grievance was 
manufactured from the '* desecration of the Sabbath " 
by bands in the parks. Even Mr. Disraeli's periodical 
exhibitions of fireworks barely evoked a cheer from the 
ranks of the Opposition. On continental questions 
alone was any interest taken, and of these an abundant 
crop was provided by the unsettled complications created 
by the Crimean war. 

A little squabble with the United States was speedily 
settled. Under the provisions of the Foreign Enlist- 



176 LIFE OF VISCOUNT PALMEBSTON. 

ment Act, the Government had raised recruits whom 
they helieved to be British subjects and Germans 
living in the United States for the regiments in Nova 
Scotia. Unfortunately, several American citizens vpere 
enlisted, and the neutrality of the United States was 
thereby violated. A qualified apology was offered by 
Lord Clarendon ; but the correspondence that ensued 
was conducted by Mr. Marcy, the United States Secre- 
tary, with considerable acrimony ; and finally Sir John 
Crampton, our Minister at Washington, was recalled 
at the request of the Government of the United 
States, who asserted that he was implicated in the 
illegal enlistments. The British Government, feeling 
that they had been placed in a false position, deter- 
mined to ignore the rebuke, and in the following 
year Lord Napier presented his credentials at Washing- 
ton, and was duly received. As Lord Palmerston 
pointed out, when attacked in the House of Commons, 
it was useless to maintain the importance of friendly 
relations between England and America on the one 
hand, and to attempt to prove on the other that Eng- 
land had been insulted ; and as the United States 
Government had finally acknowledged that they were 
satisfied with regard to the conduct of the British 
Government, though not with that of its agents, among 
whom they reckoned Sir John Crampton, it was unne- 
cessary to adopt measures of retaliation. 

Far more serious were the complications directly 
connected with the Treaty of Paris ; and in spite of the 
secret Treaty of April 15 th between Austria, France, 
and England, guaranteeing the existence of the Otto- 
man Empire — the osuvre post/tume of the Congress, as 
Baron Briinnow called it — there seemed to be some 
considerable danger of a revival of hostilities. The con- 



WAES AND HUMOURS OF WAMS. 177 

tingeDcy was the more to be feared, because the Anglo- 
French alliance was for the moment non-existent. For 
the Czar, bitterly incensed at the part played by Aus- 
tria in proposing the cession of Bessarabia, w^as making 
open overtures to Napoleon; and the Emperor of the 
French, flattered by the attentions of the autocrat, and 
surrounded by advisers like Morny and Walewski who 
were notoriously Russian in their proclivities, lent a 
ready ear to the voice of the charmer, more especially 
as he had received a rebuff from Austria in her refusal 
to take possession of the Principalities at his invitation. 
England, on her side, drew closer to Austria. The 
disruption of the European concert naturally gave 
Russia an opportunity for indulging in those pettifog- 
ging and vexatious evasions in the execution of treaties 
with which the name of Prince Gortscliakoff will alwavs 
be associated. " Russia," according to his well-known 
phrase, "was not sulking, she was only collecting 
herself together." Still she displayed the spirit of a 
beaten and angry school-boy in demolishing the fortifi- 
cations of Kars, Ismail, and Reni, before surrendering 
them ; in seizing Serpent's Island at the mouth of the 
Danube, though it was palpably within the new Bess- 
arabian frontier ; and in attempting to alter that line 
by insisting that it should be carried to the south, not 
of the old Bolgrad shown upon the map used at the 
Congress, but of a new Bolgrad, the existence of which 
was then for the first time made known to Europe. 

Lord Palmerston was not the man to put up with 
chicanery of this sort. The evacuation of Kars was 
procured by the hint that if further delay took place no 
English representative should attend the Emperor's 
coronation. The despatch of a British fleet into the 
Black Sea, with an intimation in answer to Prince 

12 



178 LIFE OF VISCOUNT PALMFBSTON. 

Gortsclialvoff's complaints, that we considered that we 
were acting within our right, and would continue to act 
in the same manner should necessity arise, procured the 
surrender of Serpent's Island, and induced the Czar 
to offer a reasonable frontier line, which was accepted 
on the recommendntion of Lord Clarendon. The only 
question that remained unsettled was that of the 
Dauubian Principalities, and in handling it Lord Pal- 
merston and Lord Clarendon displayed less than their 
usual sagacity. 

When the Congress of Paris agreed that the con- 
stitution of the Principalities should be left for future 
settlement, after the report of a Special Commission 
had been considered, they acknowledged that the nut 
was hard to crack. At the same time, by agreeing that 
a Divan should be convoked by the Porte in each of the 
two provinces to ascertain the wishes of the inhabitants, 
they recognised the right of those inhabitants to a 
certain voice in their own future. That decision arrived 
at, there could not be much doubt that France, Russia, 
and Sardinia were only logical in supporting the desire 
of the Walhichians and Moldavians for unity, a desire 
-which only failed to find open expression because the 
Porte resorted to the desperate expedient of falsifying 
the returns of the Moldavian electoral lists. The views 
of the dissentient Governments, those of England, 
Austria, and Turkey, might be plausible, but they were 
certainly short-sighted. If the new State would never 
be strong enough, as Lord Palmerston appears to have 
thought — though wrongly — to become a barrier against 
liussia, even under a ruler chosen from one of the princely 
houses of Europe ; none the less was the weakness of the 
divided Principalities certain to give Russia continued 
pretexts for intervention. And though he persuaded 



WABS AND BUM0UE8 OF WABS, 179 

the Emperor of the French, during his visit to Oshorno 
in 1857, to yield on the question of union on condition, 
that the Porte should be forced to annul the elections ; 
his designs were signally frustrated by the action of the 
Principalities themselves. By simultaneously electing 
Prince Couza for their ruler, they showed themselves 
signally indifferent to the paternal advice of England; 
and though united Eoumania fought on the side of 
Russia in the Turkish war of 1886, she has since found, 
contrary to Lord Palmerslon's anticipations, that her 
true interests lie in an attitude of firm resistance to the 
imperious sic volo sic jiibeo of the Divine Figure of the 
North. 

The reconstruction of Europe alone did not give 
sufficient occupation to the Emperor's fantastic mind; 
he was also busy with a project for dividing the Sick 
Man's heritage on the southern shores of the Mediter- 
ranean, through the occupation of Tunis by Sardinia, 
Morocco by France, and Egypt by England. But the last 
part of the plan, if carried into execution, would have been 
so extremely unpopular with the French nation, that it 
was almost certainly put forward as a mere blind ; in 
fact, the whole does not seem to have advanced beyond 
a very early stage of incubation. At any rate. Lord Pal- 
merston had the good sense to reject it at once. How 
could England and France, he contended, who had just 
guaranteed the integrity of the Turkish Empire, pro- 
ceed, like the partitioners of Poland, to strip the Sultan 
of his outlying dominions ? Besides, we did not want 
Egypt; all that we wished was that the country should 
not belong to any other European Power, and that we 
should have a free passage across it. And it was the 
dread of the intervention of a European Power, par 
ticularlv of France, which lay at the root of Lord 

12 * 



180 LIFE OF VISCOUNT PALMFESTON. 

Palmerston's steady opposition to the Suez Canal 
scheme. 

That opposition was of the most uncompromising 
character. Lord Cowley worked on the Emperor of 
the French, Lord Stratford de KedclifFe and Sir Henry 
Bulwer after him upon the Porte, with such good 
effect, that the firman authorising its constitution was 
not granted until after Lord Palmerston's death. His 
policy has been subjected to much ridicule, both at the 
time and since ; and the projector of the enterprise con- 
sidered Lord Palmerston's objections so absurd, that, 
at an interview with the Prime Minister in April 1856, 
he could not help asking himself now and again whether 
he was in the presence of a maniac or a statesman."^ 
But M. de Lesseps might have reasonably come to the 
conclusion that Lord Palmerston was perfectly sane, 
though he was not an engineer, and did not fully grasp 
the financial side of the question. His objections, as 
far as they were made public, were based on three 
grounds; that the canal was impracticable; that, even 
if it were made, it would never be a financial success; 
thirdly, that by rendering Egypt virtually independent 
of the Porte it would impair the integrity of the Tur- 
kish Empire.f But in his first conversation with M. 
de Lesseps the Prime Minister more than hinted at the 
real causes of his deeply-rooted hostility to the scheme, 
and they are explained at greater length in a letter to 
Lord John Eussell, which is reproduced in the appendix 
to the first edition of Mr. Ashley's biography. They 
were — first, that a canal open to all nations would 
deprive England of the commercial monopoly with the 

* Recollections of Forty Years, by Ferdinand de Lesseps, vol. i. 
p. 291. 

t Speech in the House of Commons, July 7th, 1857. 



WABS AND BUMOUES OF WAB8. 181 

East which she at present possessed. This prophecy 
has to a certain extent been falsified in the event, but 
it remains to be proved whether much of the commerce 
that by the old Cape route naturally found its way 
directly to London, will not be gradually drawn into 
Marseilles and other Mediterranean ports. But more 
important by far are the gravamina against the canal 
which are summed up in this passage : — 

It requires only a glance at the map of the world to see how great 
would be the nayal and military advantage to France in a war with 
England to have such a short cut to the Indian Seas, while we should 
be obliged to send ships round the Cape. Thouvenel proposes, indeed, 
that the passage of ships of war should be forbidden as at the Darda- 
nelles ; but I presume he does not expect us to receive such a pi'O- 
posal except wath a decently suppressed smile. Of course the first 
week of a war between France and England would see 15,000 or 
20,000 Frenchmen in possession of the canal, to keep it open for them 
and shut for us. But then, moreover, so strong a military barrier 
between Syria and Egypt would greatly add to the means of the 
Pasha for the time being to declare himself independent of Turkey, 
which would mean his being a dependent of France. 

The course of events has modified the applicability of 
Lord Palmerston's conclusions a little, but only a little. 
For " France^' most people would be inclined to read 
** Russia," as far as India is concerned, or possibly the 
two combined ; but it should be remembered that when 
Lord Palmerston wrote, the Black Sea clauses of the 
Treaty of Paris were in force, and the Empire of the 
Czar had not yet emerged from the stage described by 
Prince Gortschakoff* as that of ** gathering herself 
together." And that the danger of Egypt becoming a 
dependency of France was not wholly chimerical, is 
shown by the recent efforts of English diplomacy to 
keep . Napoleon's successors out of the country by 
Anglo-Turkish conventions, or to tie their hands by 
Dual Controls, not to spealc of armies of occupation. 



182 LIFE OF VISCOUNT PALMEBSTOJSl. 

Upon one point Lord Palmerston's predictions are, if 
military authorities can be trusted at all, as true to-day 
as when they were written ; and that is the complete 
inutility of the canal if we were at war with a first-class 
European Power, and the possibility of its being even 
used against us. 

U'he Anglo-French alliance was preserved unbroken 
during the years immediately following the Crimean 
war, chiefly no doubt by the peculiarly intimate relations 
of the two courts. But the cordial friendship that 
existed between Lord Palmerston and Count Persigny, 
whom, as being one of the few honest men about him, 
the Emperor had the good sense to make his represen- 
tative in London, contributed also to that result in no 
small degree. The Count may have been a man of few 
ideas, but he saw clearly enough that the friendship of 
England was a matter of life and death to the Second 
Empire, and that it was useless for the author of Les 
Idees Napoleoniennes^ the advocate of the revision of the 
treaties of 1815, to imagine that diplomatic coquetry 
with Prussia and the German Federation was anything 
else than a mere waste of time. So far did he carry 
his English proclivities, that the Emperor, on the occa- 
sion of his visit to Osborne in 1857, complained to 
Prince Albert that Count Persigny always took the side 
of Lord Palmerston against his master ; and there can 
be no doubt that the strength of will of these two 
vigorous men kept the Emperor for a time from drift- 
ing into dangerous courses For though the hand of 
Walewski was to be seen in his policy with regard to 
the Principalities, that of Persigny was equally visible 
in the harmonious action of France and England in the 
quarrel between Prussia and Switzerland re Neuchatel, 
and still more in the measures dealt out to King Bomba 



WAES AND BUMOUBS OF WARS. 183 

about the same time. The successive steps by which 
the necessity of treating British subjects with civility 
was inculcated upon the Neapolitan Sovereigo, begin- 
ning with a visit of the British fleet in 1855 and ending 
with the recall of the French and English legations 
in 1856, were also thoroughly Palmerstonian; and Mr. 
Greville is probably not far wrong in ascribing to the 
" contagious '' influence of the Prime Minister, several 
of Lord Clarendon's apparently high-handed proceed- 
ings about this period. Prince Gortschakoff, as readers 
of Sir Theodore Martin are doubtless aware, issued a 
sarcastic protest against the interference of the Western 
Governments in the internal affairs of Naples. But it 
did not come with much consistency from the represen- 
tative of the Power which had despatched the Menschi- 
koff mission ; and the British Ministers could plead with 
justice that King Bomba, during their long acquaintance 
with him, had been invariably deaf to good advice, but 
singularly amenable to coercion. 

In one of the two little wars, those with Persia and 
China, in which England became involved after the 
Crimean war, the influence of Russia is no doubt to a 
considerable extent discernible, though probably not so 
much as Lord Palmerston imagined. He was, of 
course, well aware that overtures for the assistance of 
Persia had been made at Teheran by the Russian envoy, 
Prince Dolgorouki, before the outbreak of hostilities 
with Russia, and that to the wise counsels of the Per- 
sian Vizier was almost entirely to be ascribed the 
rejection of the Russian alliance and the attitude of 
friendly neutrality towards the Western Powers ulti- 
mately adopted by the Shah. But he was probably 
mistaken in imagining that Russian intrigue was at the 
bottom of the sudden change of policy adopted by the 



184 LIFE OF VISCOUNT PALMEB8T0N, 

Vizier when the war was nearly over; and that func- 
tionary was in all probability actuated by no loftier 
motive than that of saving his own neck from the wrath 
of the Shah, when he picked a quarrel with the English 
Minister, Mr. Murray, and, after diplomatic relations 
liad been suspended, sent an expedition against Herat 
in direct violation of the agreement made with England 
in 1853. But whether the attack on the key of India 
was, as Lord Palraerston suspected, " the first opening 
of the trenches against India by Russia," or whether it 
was simply the act of a man situated between the Devil 
and the deep sea, it had in either case to be avenged. 
The peace concluded after a war conducted on the 
principle of dealing gently with the Shah, lest his empire 
should crumble to pieces, is remarkable for the genuine 
attempt to create the ** strong, united, and friendly 
Afghanistan " of Lord Beaconsfield's dreams, by com- 
pelling His Majesty to surrender all his claims over 
that country, and for an arrangement for the suppression 
of the slave trade in the Persian Gulf, which proved 
that age had not weakened Lord Palmerston's generous 
instincts. 

The Persian war is perhaps of all our little wars that 
to which it is least possible to raise serious objections. 
The Chinese war must appear to most people ditEcult to 
justify on the grounds either of morality or expediency. 
In the dispute which arose over the little lorcha 
** Arrow," Sir John Bowring, Governor of Hong-Kong, 
seems to have displayed a lamentable lack of judgment; 
to have forced on a quarrel in a case where the civis 
Romanus sum doctrine could not by any possibility be 
applied ; to have refused ample amends ; and to have 
chosen a moment when the irritation between the two 
nations was at its height to put forward demands under 



WABS AND EUMOUBS OF WARS. 185 

a treaty which he must have known that the Chinese 
hated exceedingly, and the non-execution of which he 
had been expressly ordered not to make a casi/s belli. 
If ever the maxim that British agents must be sup- 
ported was to be broken through, the ** Arrow " aifair 
seemed a case in which a recall would have been 
advisable. Lord Palmerston, however, resolved to 
stand by Bowring, and he pointed out, with considerable 
show of reason, in answer to a motion of Mr. Cobden's 
which the Government determined to treat as one of 
censure, that to yield to the Chinese Commissioner 
Yeh, would be " a virtual casting off of the British 
communities in China." But the speech, taken as 
a whole, was not one of his happiest efforts. It con- 
tained some personalities at the expense of Mr. 
Cobden, containing, perhaps, a substratum of truth, 
but at the same time extremely exaggerated. Upon 
the merits and demerits of the actual case of the 
"Arrow" the Prime Minister was extremely hazy, 
and his main point was that it was only one of many 
acts of deliberate violation of our treaty rights, and 
that " the animus of an insult, the animus of violation 
of the treaty was in the Chinese, and you had a right 
to demand not only an apology for the wrong that 
was done, but an assurance that it should not be 
repeated." In short, that it was about time that the 
Chinese had another " exemplary licking." 

The Government expected defeat, and had made up 
their minds to appeal to the country. The latter 
part of Lord Palmerston's speech accordingly con- 
tained a stirring election appeal — " very bow-wow," as 
Greville says, but very skilful — in which he declaimed 
against the coalition of Kadicals, Peelites, and Conserva- 
tives. Just before the dissolution which followed the de- 



186 LIFE OF VISCOUNT PALMEBSTOJSf. 

feat of the Government by a majority of 16, Mr. Cobden 
attempted to give Lord Palmerston a lesson in elec- 
tioneering. The last rag of the old reform banner, he 
said, had recently been trampled under foot. Lord 
Palmerston having voted against Mr. Locke King's 
motion for that ** miserable modicum of reform," 
a £10 county franchise; and now he was going 
to the country with the cry, " Palmerston for ever ! 
No reform ! and a Chinese war ! '' He was simply 
playing into the hands of the Conservatives. But the 
Prime Minister, whose character was in itself so perfect 
a representation of the faults as well as the virtues of 
the nation, was far more capable of reading the heart 
of the people than Mr. Cobden, whom the bulk of the 
constituencies probably regarded as a doctrinaire who 
was generally hard to understand and sometimes posi- 
tively wearisome. As a matter of fact, the constituencies 
did not care two straws about reform ; they approved of 
the Chinese war, as Mr. Disraeli foresaw they would. 
They fairly adored '* old Pam," and agreed with him in 
regarding the combination of Conservatives, Peelites, and 
Radicals as actuated by motives of faction. But their 
abomination was the Manchester school, which was 
wiped off the face of the earth. Mr. Bright, Mr. 
Cobden, and Mr. Milner Gibson all suffered defeat, 
and it was calculated that Government had gained 
twenty-four counties and twenty towns. As Mr. Morley 
points out, nothing like the overthrow had been seen 
since the disappearance of the Peace Whigs in 1812. 

The confidence which the English people reposed in 
Lord Palmerston as a man in whose hands its honour 
was safe, was, on the whole, thoroughly justified by the 
mein with which he confronted the Indian Mutiny. It 
is impossible, indeed, to read the correspondence be- 



WABS AND EUM0UB8 OF WABS. 187 

tween Premier and Sovereign, published by Sir Theodore 
Martin, without coming to the conclusion that at the 
outset he undervalued the danger very considerably, and 
that it was fortunate for the nation that Prince Albert 
was at hand to point out the perils of a jaunty optimism. 
However, when he was fully awake to the greatness of 
the occasion, his proceedings were characterised by his 
usual dash and promptitude, while his cheeriness upheld 
the spirit of the nation. He pitched on the right man, 
when Sir Colin Campbell was sent out to India and to 
take the vacant place of Commander-in-Chief; when, as 
the Premier subsequently informed a delighted House 
of Commons, upon being asked when he would be able 
to start, the gallant officer, with his ordinary prompti- 
tude, replied '* To-morrow." And the sentiments which 
dictated Lord Palraerston to refuse the proffered assis- 
tance from Belgium, under full confidence that England 
could " win off her own bat," were thoroughly English 
and great; as also was his intimation at the Mansion 
House to *' any foreign nation ^' that *' it would not be 
a safe game to play to take advantage of that which is 
erroneously imagined to be the moment of our weak- 
ness." 

Even the overthrow of Lord Palmerston in the fol- 
lowing year on the Conspiracy to Murder Bill, 
introduced on the occasion of the Orsini attempt on 
Napoleon III., was not followed by a withdrawal of 
popular favour, and was probably due simply to mis- 
management. The opinion naturally prevailed in the 
House of Commons that the author of the civis Roma- 
nus sum speed) was not seen at his best when modifying 
the criminal law of England at the bidding of a foreign 
potentate; and the measure was never particuhirly 
popular. But the first reading was carried by 299 ta 



188 LIFE OF VISCOUNT PALMEBSTON, 

99, and it is certain that had it not hcen for the vio- 
lence of the language across the water, and the un- 
fortunate neglect of Lord Clarendon to send a formal 
reply to Count Walewski's hectoring despatch, the 
subsequent course of the measure would have been 
equally prosperous. Even under the circumstances, 
defeat might have been avoided if the Government 
wliips had been alive to the critical nature of the divi- 
sion ; and if Lord Palmerston had consented to adjourn 
the debate in order to allow passions to cool and the 
necessary explanations to be made — explanations which, 
when they were eventually forthcoming, were acknow- 
ledged by Lord Derby to be perfectly satisfactory. So 
unlike Palmerston's usual tactics was the lack of resource 
he displayed on the occasion, that many observers thought 
that the whole affair was a fausse sortie \ and that he 
preferred to resign on the Conspiracy to *Murder Bill 
lather than on the impending question of the extremely 
unpopular appointment of Lord Clanricarde to the 
Privy Seal, an appointment which Lord Brougham had 
forewarned Lady Palmerston would *' damn the Minis- 
try."*' Mr. Greville, however, rejects that explanation ; 
and as Sir George Cornewall Lewis never hinted at it in 
his conversations with the Clerk of the Council, it is 
pretty certain that he was right in his conclusions, and 
that Lord Palmerston fell through one of those errors 
of judgment to which all mortals are prone. In any 
case, he was quite right to abstain from retaining power 
after the discredit of a defeat. For the Conservative 
party took little by entering into office; and the period 
of opposition to which the Liberal party was condemned, 
was of infinite value in the healing of internal dissensions. 



189 



CHAPTER XII. 

LOED PALME RSTON AND ITALY. 

1848-18G1. 

The Willis's Rooms meeting — Defeat of Lord Derby's ministry — ^Lord 
Palmerston and Azeglio — The Sardinian Contingent — The Con- 
gress of Paris — The mission of Kossuth — The treaty of Villa- 
franca — Policy of the English Cabinet — The cession of Nice and 
Savoy — Lord Palmerston's efforts on ijehalf of Italy — His speech 
on the death of Cavour. 

While the second Derby administration kept in power 
through the divisions of their opponents and the 
supreme skill with which they were led by Mr. Disraeli, 
the most important debates as far as the Liberal party 
was concerned were, not those heard in the House 
of Commons, but those in the aristocratic halls of 
Woburn Abbey and Broadlands. The main objects of 
the negotiators were to effect a reconciliation between 
the two kings of Brentwood, Lord John Rassell and 
Lord Palmerston, and at the same time to frame a pro- 
gramme sufficiently large to secure the support of the 
Eadical and Peelite groups. The reader must consult 
the pages of Greville if ho wishes to obtain a detailed 
knowledge of the moves and counter-moves of the Whig 
party managers, male and female ; and it is enough to 
say here, that although the dissolution of 1859 gave a 
considerable accession of strength to the Conservatives, 



190 LIFE OF VISCOUNT PALMFBSTON. 

it was not enough to counterbalance the effect of the 
reunion of the Liberal party accomplished at the 
Willis's Rooms meeting of June 6th. There Lord 
Palmerston and Lord John Eussell announced that each 
was willing to serve under the other in the event of 
either being sent for, and the course of conduct agreed 
upon received the support of men of such varied shades 
of opinion as Lord Palmerston, Lord John Russell, Mr. 
Milner Gibson, and Mr. Sidney Herbert. 

The amendment to the Address moved by Lord Har- 
tington, upon which Ministers were defeated by a 
majority of thirteen, was a general vote of want of con- 
fidence. But the debate turned almost entirely on the 
war of Italian Liberation ; and Lord Malmesburv bar" no 
doubt whatever that the overthrow of the Conservative 
Ministry might have been postponed, if Mr. Disraeli 
had not omitted to lay on the table of the House the 
Blue Book containing the Italian and French corre- 
spondence with the Foreign Office. Not only was the 
future of Italy the question of the hour, but it was the 
question which divided the Liberals the least. The 
three most powerful men of the reunited party, Lord 
John Russell, Lord Palmerston, and Mr. Gladstone, 
were all definitely anti-Austrian in their views ; and the 
decidedly pronounced Italian sympathies of the first 
and second of the trio caused Lady William Russell to 
bestow upon them the happy sobriquet of the ** old 
Italian masters." 

Lord Palmerston had, in truth, been consistently 
faithful to the Italians ever since the temporary 
overthrow of their aspirations in 1848. He early 
recognised the genius of Cavour ; and both he and 
Lady Palmerston were on terms of the warmest inti- 
macy with the Marquis Emanuel d'Azeglio, the astute 



LOUB PALMEBSTON AND ITALY, IPl 

diplomatist who represented Sardinian interests in 
London with such striking ability during the important 
decade from 1851 to 1861. That friendship was of consi- 
derable importance to the Italian cause, and the value of 
his services can be traced in the series of highly interest- 
ing letters from Cavour to Azeglio, recently published by 
M. Nicomede Bianchi under the title of La Politiq^ie dii 
Comte Camille de Cavour. The machinations of the 
Machiavellian Piedmontese seem, indeed, to have em- 
braced the whole of the family circle of Broadlands. 
Not only were " private " despatches doctored for the 
purpose of being laid on the table of Milady, but Lord 
Shaftesbury was favoured with stories of Jesuitical 
atrocities, which were reproduced with great effect in 
Exeter Hall,"^ as Victor Emmanuel discovered when in 
1856 the English people received him with the honours 
of a Protestant hero- It is probable, however, that 
both Lord Palmerston and his agent, Sir James Hud- 
son, the British Minister at Turin, were too well 
acquainted with the rules of diplomacy not to be able 
to distinguish grain from chaff. Both men were 
Italianissimi ; and both were simply acting in agree- 
ment with their inclinations in advocating the despatch 
of the Sardinian contingent to the Crimea on the under- 
standing that the representatives of the monarchy 
should be allowed to discuss " Sardinian interests " at 
the peace negotiations, and both were fully aware that 
by so doing they were giving a great access of import- 
ance to Sardinia. Lord Palmerston even went so far as 
to adopt a plan hatched by Napoleon during the Con- 
gress of Paris for the acquisition of the Duchy of 
Parma by Sardinia through a process of shuffling the 

* " Menagez toujours ce bon Shaft," wrote Cavour to Azeglio 
and his letters are full of similar admonitions. 



192 LIFE OF VISCOUNT PALMFBSTON. 

petty potentates of Europe, and to reproduce it by a 
process of unconscious cerebration as his own. The 
Duke of Modena was to become King of Greece in 
place of Otho; the Duchess of Parma was to move on 
to Modena; Parma was to be annexed to Sardinia. He 
seems, indeed, to have taken the project far more 
seriously than Cavour, who was content to have laid 
the Italian question on the diplomatic carpet. Lord 
Clarendon's speech on the wickedness of the Papal and 
Neapolitan governments at the last meeting of the Con- 
gress ** broke the windows," as Cavour wrote, but he was 
well aware that " cannon alone could settle the business." 
Some letters purporting to be by Cavour, and 
published alter his death, attempted to fix upon Lord 
Clarendon the responsibility of having promised the 
Sardinian Government the material assistance of Eng- 
land in the event of war between Austria and Italy. 
But as Lord Clarendon promptly gave the statement an 
explicit denial in the House of Lords, and as there is 
not a single line of confirmatory evidence to be found 
in the peculiarly confidential correspondence between 
Cavour and Azeglio, it was certainly false. Whether 
the letters were concocted after Cavour's death, or for 
some special purpose at the time when they pre- 
tended to be written, there can hardly be a doubt that 
the English Foreign Secretary, whose proclivities w^ere 
in the main Austriiin, did not commit the Liberal party 
to anything more than extremely warm expressions of 
sympathy with the Italian cause. Indeed, Cavour 
always disliked *' our friend with the chin," as he termed 
Lord Clarendon, but he seems to have had too much 
knowledge of mankind to attempt to sow dissension 
between him and the Prime Minister. Palmerston, on 
his side, more than once told Azeglio that the English 



LORD PALMEBSTON AND ITALY, 193 

Parliament would not sanction armed intervention for 
the Italian cause ; and though Cavour was of consider- 
able service to the English Ministry in the settlement 
of the Bolgrad difficulty, he had, in 1858, long after 
he had secured Napoleon at Plombieres, given up all 
hopes of assistance from England. 

We cannot hope [he writes to d'Azeglio on the 1st of December] to 
modify the policy of England in our favour. She has become Aus- 
trian, and we must go our own way. Salvagnoli has repeated to me 
his conversations with Lord Palmerston and Lord John Russell. 
They are, in words at least, a hundred times worse than the Tories. 

So much for the falsehood, circulated at the time and 
since repeated, that Lord Palmerston, if he had been in 
office, would have plunged England into a Quixotic 
expedition for the liberation of Italy. The Emperor 
of thp French, by inviting Clarendon and Palmerston 
to Compiegne during the closing days of 1858, may 
have wished to entangle them in his widely-ramified 
schemes; but if so, he was singularly unsuccessful, as 
Lord Clarendon^s language was most outspoken. And 
Napoleon's object in sending the credulous Kossuth, 
after the downfall of the Derby Cabinet, on the extra- 
ordinary mission to London, which the latter has 
described in his Memories of My ExiUy was nothing 
more than to secure the neutrality of England if the 
Hungarians took part in the movement as well as the 
Italians. The mission, in fact, amounted to little more than 
preaching to the converted, since Palmerston never had 
the slightest intention of fighting on the side of Aus- 
tria. As he was obliged to purchase Radical support 
in any case, he probably did not think twice about 
giving his consent to the three points submitted to him 
by Kossuth's friend, Mr. Gilpin, in the name of the 
Badical party, (1) the overthrow of the Tory Ministry 

13 



194 LIFE OF VISCOUNT PALMEESTON, 

on their foreign policy ; (2) the absolute neutrality of 
England during the war, whatever its developments 
might be ; (3) the admission of two members of the 
Radical party into the Ministry ** in order to ensure 
their neutrality/' Everybody was satisfied, and Kos- 
suth had been given something to occupy his time and 
tongue. 

The Italian campaign was nearly over, when, on 
the failure of Lord Granville to form a ministry, 
and thereby to relieve the Queen of the " invidious, 
unwelcome task " of making a choice between Lord Pal- 
merston and Lord John Eussoll, the former became for 
the second time First Lord of the Treasury, with the 
latter for his Foreign Secretary. By the 20th of June the 
ministerial arrangements were complete ; on the 24th 
the last pitched battle of the war was fought at Sol- 
ftrino, and the Austrians retreated into the Quadri- 
lateral. Suddenly the Emperor determined to bring the 
contest to a close. His victories had been Pyrrhic ; 
the Quadrilateral defied him as it had defied Carlo 
Alberto. Prussia, which had refrained from taking the 
side of Austria solely from the discourteous manner in 
which her aid was demanded, was reported to be arm- 
ing rapidly ; Italy showed no disposition to content 
herself with that measure of liberty which he had pro- 
posed — *' freedom from the Alps to the Adriatic" — 
but was evidently determined to be at liberty from north 
to south, as well as west by east. Napoleon's attempt to 
drag England into the struggle by invoking her media- 
tion on terms which, as Lord Palmerston pointed out to 
Lord John, Austria would peremptorily refuse,^ having 

* They included the surrender of Lomhardy and the Duchies to 
Sardinia, and the erection of Venetia into an independent state under 
an archduke. 



LOEJD PALMEBSTOJSr AND ITALY, 195 

failed, the world was suddenly startled by the news that 
the two Emperors had signed a provisional treaty of 
peace at Villafranca, under which Sardinia was to con- 
tent herself with Lombardy ; the Grand Dukes of Tus- 
cany and Parma were to be reinstated, though there 
was a verbal assurance that force would not be employed 
for the purpose ; and Venetia, retained by Austria, was 
to become a member of an Italian Confederation, pre- 
sided over by the Pope. " L'ltalie rendue a elle-meme,*' 
was Lord Palmerston's subsequent comment, *' had 
become l'ltalie vendue a I'Autriche "; and without loss 
of time he wrote to Count Persigny that when once 
Austria became a member, through her hold on Vene- 
tia, of an Italian Confederation, all Italy was given up 
to Austria with feet and hands bound. 

As to the conduct of Lord Palmerston and Lord 
John Eussell at this exceedingly diflQcult juncture, 
there are naturally diversities of opinion. Sir Theodore 
Martin says that there was considerable cause for 
anxiety lest the Prime Minister and the Foreign Secre- 
tary would " be carried into some imprudence by their 
enthusiasm for the Italian cause,'' and the neutrality of 
England violated. Mr. Ashley combats that view, and 
his case, so far as the protest to Persigny goes, is ex- 
ceedingly strong. The Prime Minister did not, as the 
biographer of the Prince Consort attempts to argue, tell 
the French Government that they ought to break the 
peace ; all he said was that the arrangement was bad, 
and that England would have nothing to do with it. Nor 
can he be blamed, when Central Italy had plainly ex- 
pressed her determination to take her destinies into her 
own hands, when the duchies had flatly declined to 
receive back their petty Sovereigns and Ro magna its 
Pope, for making it clearly known that England would 

13 * 



196 LIFE OF VISCOUNT PALMEBSTON. 

consider unjustifiable the "employment of French or 
Austrian forces to put down the clearly expressed will o! 
the people of Central Italy." But when the Emperor, 
perplexed by the impossibility of executing the terms of 
the provisional Treaty of Villafranca as notified at Zurich, 
pressed for the summoning of a European Congress to 
extricate him from his difficulties, Lord Palmerston's 
conduct becomes decidedly more open to question. It 
was evidently the duty of England, as a neutral Power, 
to keep in the background, to make no attempt to 
meddle with the problem which she had not created, and 
any intervention might, as the Queen pointed out to 
Lord John Ruesell, have the effect of " forcing Aus- 
tria and France to make common cause against her.'' 
So great, however, was the Prime Minister's indignation 
at the Treaty of Villafranca, and so firm his trust in 
the good faith of the Emperor, that he had already 
written to Count Persigny a " private " letter — the old 
Adam peeped out there — urging that the clause of the 
preliminaries of peace at Villafranca relating to the 
duchies ought not to find a place in the Treaty of 
Zurich, and that it was in the interests of France that 
thev should annex themselves to Sardinia. The retort 
of the French Government was obvious ; there would be 
no peace unless the condition about the duchies were 
retained, and if Austria took up arms again, France was 
not prepared to make further sacrifices unless England 
would join the Franco-Sardinian alliance. Undeterred 
by this rebuff, both Palmerston and Lord John Russell 
during the autumn months recurred more than once to 
the idea of a Congress, and in January 1860 the Prime 
Minister actually laid before the Cabinet a memorandum 
in which he proposed a triple alliance between Eng- 
land, France, and Sardinia, with "a joint determination 



LOBB PALMEB8T0N AND ITALY. 197 

to prevent any forcible interference by any other Power 
in the affairs of Italy. 

Of course, it was more than probable that Austria 
would not dare to face such a coalition; on the other 
hand, the promise of strict neutrality made at the 
Willis's Rooms meeting had been thrown to the winds, 
and it was fortunate that these councils did not prevail 
on the Cabinet. For when Lord Palmerston penned the 
memorandum, the Congress had been foredoomed by 
the agreement of the French Emperor to the proposal of 
the English Government that the duchies should be 
allowed to vote their own destinies, and Napoleon soon 
afterwards gave the project its death-blow by his famous 
pamphlet Le Pape et le Co7igres, Indeed, the rumours 
that the Emperor was now determined to insist on 
the cession of Nice and Savoy to France, according 
to the original terms of the compact of Plombieres, 
should have convinced the English Cabinet that 
a common line of action with France on the Italian 
question was no longer possible; and on the 5th of 
February, Lord Cowley's letter to Lord John Russell 
placed the intention of the French monarch to set him- 
self right in the eyes of his subjects by extending 
France " to her natural frontiers " beyond any farther 
doubt. 

That Lord Palmerston should have been indignant 
at the tricky conduct of Napoleon, who had completely 
blinded the English Cabinet by his assertions that the 
Italian war was " for an idea," and that France sought 
in it no selfish aggrandisement, was but natural. At 
the same time, he was too experienced to attempt a pro- 
test against the annexation, when the Northern Powers 
showed no disposition to stir in the matter, and when 
Cavour, who, despite bis theatrical Apres avoir domie 



198 LIFE OF VISCOUNT PALMERSTON. 

la Jille, on poiivait hien donner le herceau, was well 
content to have gained Central Italy at the price of the 
cession of the French-speaking districts of Nice and 
Savoy, showed no disposition to draw back from the 
bargain. Still, though it was impossible any longer to 
co-operate with France, in the cause of Italian unity, 
Lord Palmerston did not cease to help the peninsula as 
best he could single-handed. When Garibaldi, having 
freed Sicily, was about to cross over to Naples, the 
Emperor of the French wished to prevent him ; but his 
request for the co-operation of the English fleet was 
met with a curt refusal. And when Garibaldi's romantic 
campaign was over, and he had handed over the two 
Sicilies to Victor Emmanuel, the English Government, 
alone in Europe, hastened to recognise the new king- 
dom of Italy. 

The Italian revolution [wrote Lord John Eussell to Sir James Hud- 
son on October 27th, 1860] has been conducted with singular temper 
and forbearance. The subversion of existing power has not been fol- 
lowed, as is too often the case, by an outburst of popular vengeance. 
The venerated forms of constitutional monarchy have been associated 
with the name of a prince who represents an ancient and glorious 
dynasty. . . . Her Majesty's Government can see no sufficient ground 
for the severe censure with which Austria, France, Prussia, and 
Russia have visited the acts of the King of Sardinia [by withdrawing 
their ministers from Turin]. Her Majesty's Government will turn 
their eyes rather to the gratifying prospect of a people building up 
the edifices of their liberties amid the sympathies and good wishes of 
Europe. 

The Emperor of the French also was warned that the 
Savoy coujj must not be repeated ; and that the British 
fleet would at once be sent to the scene of action, 
if the Emperor attempted to compensate France for the 
creation of a powerful kingdom on her borders by the 
annexation of Genoa or Sardinia. The expediency of 
withdrawing the army of occupation from Rome was 



LOUD PALMUBSTON AND ITALY. 199 

urged by him upon the Emperor again and again ; but 
without effect, since Napoleon did not dare to aftVont 
French clericalism. Lord Palmerston even entertnined 
the idea, and urged it more than once on the Italian 
Cabinet, that Venetia should be acquired by purchase 
from Austria. But the proposal was rejected as imprac- 
ticable, and another war with Austria had to be under- 
gone before Italy could recover Venetia. 

The death of Count Cavour gave Lord Palmerston 
an opportunity of paying a fine tribute to his memory, 
and of placing thereby on record his own generous 
sympathies with the cause of Italian unity. In a speech 
in the House of Commons on June 6th, 1861, he said 
that of Count Cavour **it might truly be said that he 
had left a name * to point a moral and adorn a tale.' " 

The moral is this — that a man of transcendant talents, of indomi- 
table energy, and of inextinguishable patriotism, may, by the impulses 
which his own mind may give his countrymen, aiding a righteous 
cause and seizing favourable opportunities, notwithstanding difficulties 
that appear at first sight insurmountable, confer on his country great 
and most inestimable benefits. . . . The tale with which Count 
Cavour's memory will be associated is one of the most extraordinary 
— T may say one of the most romantic in the histoiy of the world. 
Under his influence, we have seen a people who were supposed to 
have become torpid in the enjoyment of luxury, to have been enervated 
by the pursuit of pleasure, and to have had no knowledge or feeling in 
politics except what may have been derived from the traditions of their 
history and the jealousies of rival states — we have seen that people, 
under his guidance and at his call, rising from the slumber of ages, 
breaking that spell with which they had so long been bound, and dis- 
playing on just occasions tlie courage of heroes, the sagacity of states- 
men, the wisdom of philosophers, and obtaining for themselves that 
unity of political existence which for centuries has been denied them. 
I say, these are great events in history, and that the man whose name 
will go down in connection with them to posterity, whatever may 
have been the period of his death, however premature it may have 
been for the hopes of his countrymen, cannot be said to have died too 
soon for his glory and fame. 



200 LIFE OF VISCOUNT FALMEESTON. 



CHAPTER XIII. 

HOME AFFAIRS. 
1859-1865. 

Lord Palmerston's Second Cabinet — His relations witli the Radicals 
and the Opposition — The Reform Bill — Lord Palmerston and Mr. 
Gladstone — The Paper Duties Bill — His views on the National 
Defences — The Fortifications Bill — Legislation and Appointments 
— The Charges commonly brought against Lord Palmerston's 
Government — His Irish Policy. 

The administration formed by Lord Palmerston in 
June 1859 was, in point of ability, perhaps the 
strongest that had been entrusted with the affairs of the 
nation since the famous ministry *' of All the Talents '* 
collected under the leadership of Grenville and Fox in 
1806.* Lord John Russell's fixed determination to 

* Lord Palmerston's second Cabinet was composed as follows : — 
First Lord of the Treasury, Lord Palmerston. 
Lord Chancellor, Lord Campbell. 
President of the Council, Earl Granville. 
Lord Privy Seal, The Duke of Argyll. 
Home Secretary, Sir G. Cornewall Lewis. 
Foreign Secretary, Lord John Russell. 
Colonial Secretary, The Duke of Newcastle. 
Secretary for War, Mr. Sidney Herbert. 
Secretary for India, Sir Charles Wood. 



HOME AFFAIRS. 201 

have the Foreign Office and nothing else, was the cause 
of the exclusion of Lord Clarendon, a loss, perhaps^ 
less to be regretted than it would otherwise have been, 
because of the Italian complication. Sir James Gra- 
ham, during the brief remainder of his life, played the 
congenial part of the candid friend of Liberalism. Mr. 
Cobden refused to listen to the voice of the siren, and 
declined the presidency of the Board of Trade. Other- 
wise, the Ministry was composed of the flower of 
the Peelites, Whigs, and Kadicals, as a glance at the 
list below will show. But though an extremely able 
administration, it was composed of the most discor- 
dant elements, and was in fact, far more of a coali- 
tion than Lord Aberdeen's government. Its three most 
important members, the Prime Minister, Lord John 
Russell, and Mr. Gladstone, were, as we have said in 
the previous chapter, in thorough accord on the Italian 
question, and it is pleasant to see the cordiality with 
which the two veterans, after years of " tit-for-tat '^ and 
*' paying one another out," worked together in the 
shaping of our relations with the continental powers in 
the autumn of their days. But Lord John and Lord 

Chancellor of the Exchequer, Mr. Gladstone. 

First Lord of the Admiralty, The Duke of Somerset. 

President of the Board of Trade, Mr. Milner Gibson. 

Postmaster- General, Lord Elgin. 

Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, Sir George Grey. 

Chief Commissioner of the Poor Law Board, The Hon. Charles 

Villiers. 
Chief Secretary for Ireland, Mr. Card well. 

Lord Carlisle was Lord Lieutenant of Ireland; Mr. James Wilson 
Vice-President of the Board of Trade and Paymaster of the Forces ; Mr. 
Lowe, Vice-President of the Council ; Sir Kichard Bethell (Lord 
Westbury), Attorney- General, and, on the death of Lord Campbell in 
1861, Lord Chancelior. 



202 LIFE OF VISCOUNT FALMEESTON. 

Palmerston were, of course, of entirely different minds 
on the question of Reform ; the Prime Minister and Mr. 
Gladstone fell out about the national defences. There 
was a large section of the Cabinet who regarded the 
Premier as little better than a Tory in disguise, and 
another which utterly distrusted his foreign policy. 
That Lord Palmerston should have held such a body of 
men together until his death, with considerably less 
than the average number of resignations, is perhaps the 
greatest of his feats as a parliamentary manager. And 
critics who accuse him of degrading political life by 
shelving important questions and so forth, should 
remember that daring tactics are impossible when a 
general is surrounded by a divided staff. 

The difficulties with which Lord Palmerston had to 
contend were increased by the confusion that prevailed 
among the rank and file of both parties. As has occurred 
very frequently in our political history, the real divisions 
did not coincide with the sections into which parties 
nominally fell ; the gulf between Lord Palmerston and 
the Conservatives was far narrower than that between 
Lord Palmerston and the Cobdenites, and as the minis- 
terial majority was not very large, the defection of the 
latter was a most dangerous eventuality. Lord Palmer- 
ston's real strength lay accordingly in the strange fact 
that while the Piadicals were, as several of Mr. Cobden's 
letters prove, speculating eagerly on his approaching 
downfall, the Conservatives on the other hand, having 
had more than enough of office in a minority, were 
anxious that he should remain in power until they had 
a chance of coming in on a full tide. If, under the 
circumstances, Lord Palmerston had actually made 
overtures for the support of the Opposition against 
his nominal friends, the step should be blameworthy 



HOME AFFAIRS. 203 

only in the eyes of the mere political hack, who affects 
to think that his party has the monopoly of the 
cardinal virtues. But Mr. Ashley distinctly denies that 
there was any secret understanding — of a permanent 
nature as we understand him — and that the most that 
happened was that when Lord Malmesbury gratuitously 
offered to Lady Palmerston, in the name of Lord 
Derby, the support of the Conservative party, in the 
event of the resignations of Lord John Russell on 
Reform and of Mr. Gladstone on the Paper Duties Bill, 
for the remainder of the session of 1860, the offer was 
gratefully accepted. A transaction which, if carried 
into effect, would have thwarted the wrecking of a Go- 
vernment to further the desires of individuals, appears 
to be distinctly creditable to both parties concerned. 

Lord John Russell's advocacy of Reform was less 
determined than Mr. Gladstone's opposition to the ex- 
penditure on the defences, and was disposed of by Lord 
Palmerston by the simple device of letting him have his 
way. On the 1st of March 1860, the anniversary of 
the great measure which he had introduced twenty-nine 
years before, the Foreign Secretary brought in a Bill of 
which the effect was to lower the franchise from £10 to 
£6, and to redistribute twenty-five seats. But he soon 
found that the country cared little about the Bill, the 
House still less, and it perished in Committee. Lord 
Palmerston's speech was, as Mr. Disraeli said, very hap- 
pily, ** not so much in support of, as about " the Reform 
Bill ; and in his reports to the Queen he made little or 
no attempt to conceal his satisfaction at its approaching 
demise. In fact, his whole course of action was one of 
most judicious expediency. Even Lord John Russell 
was compelled to acknowledge that " the apathy of the 
country was undeniable, nor was it a transient humour." 



204 LIFE OF VISCOUNT FALMERSTON. 

This the Radicals too discovered when they stumped 
tlie North of Enghxnd on the question. If it had been 
set aside for the moment, the Prime Minister said, in 
1862, in answer to Mr. Cobden, it was owing in a 
great degree to the feeling of the House of Commons ; 
it was owing in a still greater degree to the general 
feeling of the constituencies in the country ; and it was 
most eminently owing to the course pursued in regard 
to the question by Mr. Cobden himself and Mr. Bright, 
for there was no denying that the tone which was taken 
on the subject by many of those who advocated the ques- 
tion had the effect of weaning from it those who were 
formerly most anxious for it. '* Why do we not bring 
in a Reform Bill ?*' said Lord Palmerston to Rowcliffe at 
Tiverton ; *' because we are not geese." The truth of the 
inference is undeniable, and it does not necessarily imply 
that Lord Palmerston imagined that he had thrust aside 
Parliamentary Reform for an indefinite period. All 
that he meant was that the question was not ripe for 
solution at the moment. 

The questions at issue between Lord Palmerston and 
the Chancellor of the Exchequer were less easy of 
solution. There seems to have been a certain want of 
personal cordiality between the two men. Lord Shaftes- 
bury has placed on record the old Premier's saying 
concerning his ambitious lieutenant, '' He has never 
behaved to me as a colleague." But affairs of State 
were almost certainly the causa causa?is of their diffe- 
rences. Lord Palmerston distrusted the approximation 
of his colleague to Radicalism. ** Gladstone will soon 
have it all his own way/' he told Lord Shaftesbury, 
" and, whenever he gets ray place, we shall have strange 
doings." The Chancellor, on the other hand, natu- 
rally felt bitterly annoyed at the temporary annihilation 



H03IE AFFAIRS. 205 

of most of the good effects of the commercial treaty 
negotiated by Mr. Cobden and the Emperor, a treaty in 
which he took the utmost interest, by the deep distrust 
entertained by the Prime Minister towards the *' Sphinx 
of the Seine ^' in 1860 and onwards. He had to submit 
to the temporary abandonment of one of his most 
popular measures for lightening the burdens upon the 
people at the bidding of the House of Lords, and for 
purposes of- constructing coast-defences and ironclads. 
He seems also to have agreed with the Radicals in 
stigmatising what Palmerston called a policy of defence 
as one of defiance. So completely were his views at 
variance with those of the Prime Minister that Mr. 
Cobden was of opinion that he ought to have left the 
Cabinet. 

The rejection of the Paper Duties Bill by the House 
of Lords was undoubtedly prompted by patriotic motives, 
and not, as was systematically stated at the time, bv a 
bigoted desire to hinder the spread of knowledge among 
the people. The chief reason for the temporary un- 
popularity of the Cobden commercial treaty was that it 
cheapened the necessities of war, coal and iron, for our 
possible antagonists ; and for similar reasons, the 
opinion prevailed that when war was in sight, the volun- 
tary abandonment of a source of revenue which brought 
in over a million and a quarter a year was most inexpe- 
dient. In fact, their action was dictated entirely by 
prudential considerations ; and if an important consti- 
tutional question, whether the Upper House had the 
right to reject a money-tax, was raised, it was raised only 
incidentally. Public opinion approved of the conduct 
of the Upper House, because it held that they had con- 
sulted wisely for the interests of the moment ; and Lord 
Palmerston was in thorough concord with the nation, as 



206 LIFE OF VISCOUNT FALMEBSTON. 

Greville suspected and Lord Malmesbury knew, though 
he was compelled by the necessities of his position to 
veil his satisfaction under an air of assumed displeasure. 
His management of the dispute in its later stages was 
masterly in the extreme. By appointing a committee 
of the House of Commons to consider the validity of 
Lord Lyndhurst's contention that the House of Lords 
had a right to reject, though not to originate or alter 
money Bills, he gave the angry passions of the Radical 
party time to cool; while the purely historical character 
of the report of the committee served as a useful basis 
for the judicious resolutions which, while asserting that 
the House of Lords had acted within their right, upheld 
the privileges of the Commons in a manner which even 
Mr. Gladstone acknowledged was " mild and temperate 
but firm."' 

The more general question of the necessity of spend- 
ing millions on the fortifications of the coast caused 
still greater friction in the Cabinet. In 1860, Lord 
Palmerston wrote to the Queen that '* however great the 
loss to the Government by the retirement of Mr. Glad- 
stone, it would be better to lose Mr. Gladstone 
than to run the risk of losing Portsmouth or 
Plymouth " ; and when the Fortifications Bill was intro- 
duced, the Chancellor of the Exchequer reserved for 
himself the right to take what course he pleased in the 
following year, a course which the Prime Minister de- 
scribed to Her Majesty as likely to be one of *' ineffec- 
tual opposition and ultimate acquiescence." And in 
1861, Mr. Gladstone, in his Budget speech, commented 
on the nation's ** increased susceptibility to excitement, 
in our proneness to constant and apparently boundless 
augmentations of expenditure." He was thus tho- 
roughly in agreement with Cobden, who, on July lOtb, 



eom:e affairs. 207 

I860, wrote an able letter to Lord Palmerston urging 
the postponement of the fortification scheme, and in 
1862 forwarded to the Premier a memorandum in which 
he suggested that the Governments of England and 
France should come to an understanding about the 
number of ships of war which each of the two countries 
should maintain. 

The Prime Minister's counter arguments are to be 
found in Mr. Ashley's biography, and may be 
summarised here as far as they deal with the general 
principles of coast defence. In a letter dated Decem- 
ber 1859, he pointed out to Mr. Gladstone how liable 
to invasion England was. One nighty he wrote, 
is enough for the passage to our coast, and twenty 
thousand men might be landed simultaneously at Ports- 
mouth, Plymouth, and in Ireland, with the result that 
our dockyards would be destroyed before twenty thou- 
sand men coald be got together to defend either of 
them. Or the mawceuvre of the first Napoleon might 
be repeated and a large French fleet with troops on board 
despatched to the West Indies. Were we then to leave 
our colonies to their fate, or were we to go in pursuit, 
leaving our coast bare in case the French doubled back ? 
In April 1862, in a letter to the same, he denied that 
England was acting under the influence of panic. 

Panic there has been none on the part of anybody. There was for 
a long time an apathetic blindness on the part of the governed and 
the governors as to the defensive means of the country compared 
■with the offensive means acquired and acquiring by other Powers. 
The country at last woke up from its lethargy, not, indeed, to rush 
into extravagance and uncalled-for exertions, but to make up gradu- 
ally for former omissions, and so far, no doubt, to throw u-oon a 
shorter period of time expenses which earlier foresight might have 
spread over a greater length of time. The Government, the Parlia- 
ment, and the nation acted in harmonious concert ; and if any proof 
•were wanting that the nation has been inspired by a dclilerate 



208 LIFE OF VISCOUNT PALMEBSTON, 

and sagacious appreciation of its position with respect to other 
Powers, that proof has been afforded by the long-continued and well- 
sustained sacrifices of time and money which have been made by the 
160,000 volunteers, and by those who have contributed to supply them 
with requisite funds. 

To Mr. Cobden's proposal for a mutual limitation of 

armaments the Prime Minister only sent the most 

general reply. 

It would be very delightful [he wrote] if your Utopia could be 
realised; and if the nations of the earth would think of nothing but 
peace and commerce, and would give up quarrelling and fighting alto- 
gether. But, unfortunately, man is a fighting and quarrelling animal ; 
and that this is human nature is proved by the fact that republics, 
where the masses govern, are far more quarrelsome and more ad- 
dicted to fighting than monarchies, which are governed by compara- 
tively few persons. But so long as other nations are animated by 
these human passions, a country like England, wealthy, and exposed 
to attack, must by necessity be provided with the means of defence, 
and however dear these means may be, they are infinitely cheaper 
than the war which they tend to keep off. 

The speech,^ in which Palmerston proposed the 
raising of nine millions to be spent in fortifying the 
dockyards, contained a remarkable account of the dangers 
to which the country was exposed, which is not without 
interest at the present moment. Invasion, he said, 
might be made for three purposes, first, with the hope 
of conquest^ which he thought no foreign country would 
imagine to be possible ; secondly, to get possession of 
London, and there levy contributions or dictate an 
ignominious peace. This kind of attack could only be 
resisted by an army in the field. London was too vast 
a space to be surrounded by fortifications, and there 
were strong natural positions between it and the coast 
which could be successfully held by a large force. The 
size of some of the great harbours, Liverpool and New- 

* July 23rd, 18G0. 



HOME AFFAIRS. 209 

castle for instance, made it also extremely difficult to 
fortify them, but they could be defended by batteries 
from the only kind of attack to which they were liable 
•—^the attack of small squadrons for purposes of mis- 
chief and for levying contributions. But the operation 
which he apprehended was most likely to be attempted, 
was that of landing a considerable force for the purpose 
of destroying our dockyards. 

If yonr dockyards are destroyed, your navy is cut up by the roots. 
If any naval action were then to take place, your enemy, whatever the 
success of it might be, would have his dockyards, arsenals, and stores 
to refit and replenish and reconstruct his navy; while, with your 
dockyards burned and your stores destroyed, you would have no 
means of refitting your navy and sending it out to battle. If ever we 
lose the command of the sea, what becomes of this country ? Only 
let hon. gentlemen compare how dependent we are for everything that 
constitutes national wealth — aye, and a large portion of national food, 
on free communication by sea. We import about ten million quarters 
of corn annually, besides enormous quantities of coffee, sugar, and 
tea and cotton, which is next to corn for the support of the people by 
enabling them to earn their food. Our wealth depends on the expor- 
tation of the products of our industry, which we exchange for those 
things which are necessazy for our social position. Our exports 
amount to considerably more than one hundred millions in value 
annuallj'. Picture to yourselves for a moment such places as Liver- 
pool, Bristol, Glasgow, and London, that is to say the Thames, 
blockaded by a hostile force. 

The resistance offered by the Prime Minister to the 
cry of economy in military and naval expenditure, even 
when raised by the most important member of his 
Cabinet, is assuredly much to his credit. And it should 
be remembered also that, if he played no active part in the 
great financial triumphs of his second administration, 
the Cobden treaty and Mr. Gladstone's budgets, he at 
any rate sympathised thoroughly with their objects as 
far as they were purely commercial and did not interfere 

14 



210 LIFE OF VISCOUNT PALMFBSTON, 

with the naval and military strength of England. The 
budgets alone are enough to absolve the second Palmer- 
ston Cabinet from the charge of useless inactivity ; but 
a perusal of the Queen's Speeches at the close of each 
Session conveys also the impression that the two 
Houses, without attempting heroic legislation, succeeded 
in getting through a vast amount of unpretentious but 
exceedingly useful work — Prisons Bills, Partnership 
Liability Bills, Crime Chargeability Bills, and so forth. 
Lord Westbury, one of the greatest of modern Lord 
Chancellors, made vigorous efforts at law reform, and 
though the result fell far short of his plans, he at any 
rate induced the public to take an interest in the techni- 
calities of land transfer and the registration of title. 
To the Prime Minister, and also, though in a less 
degree, to the leader of the Opposition, must be assigned 
much of the credit for the business-like character of the 
debates. Though the average of oratorical ability was 
possibly not very high, the speeches were generally to 
the point, the discussions were never unduly protracted, 
and the Sessions, instead of dragging on into' Septem- 
ber, were generally over by the middle of August ; and 
once, in 1865, Parliament rose on the 6th of July. 
Halcyon were the nights for the most part, and their 
peacefulness was due to the unfailing tact with which 
the aged Premier, though not a frequent speaker, 
restored by his timely interventions a querulous House 
to a sense of dignity, and an angry House to good 
humour. If there was comparatively little wool in 
those days there was also little cry. 

Another feature that the apologist of Lord Palmers- 
ton's second Ministry will dwell upon with pleasure is 
its freedom from jobbery. This we say, notwithstand- 
ing the scandal that was created by certain peccadilloes 



HOME AFFAIES. 211 

of Lord Westbury during the last months of its active 
existence. The various cases of abuse of patronage 
were certainly proved to the hilt, though no attempt 
was made to establish a charge of personal corruption 
against the Lord Chancellor; but the incident did not 
damage the Government as a whole, and the nation 
proved by its verdict at the polls, that it fully accepted 
Lord Palmerston's explanation, that Lord Westbury had 
been advised to remain at his post in order that the 
question might be sifted by parliamentary inquiry. As 
to the propriety of Lord Palmerston's own distribution 
of patronage, both lay and ecclesiastical, the evidence 
contained in the numerous official letters reproduced by 
Mr. Ashley is most conclusive ; he was no nepotist. His 
recommendations to ecclesiastical appointments were, 
no doubtj a rock of offence to the High Church party 
in general and to Bishop Wilberforce in particular; but 
the outcry amounted to no more than this — that the 
''Shaftesbury bishops^' were chosen almost encirely 
from the Evangelical party. Even an undue partiality 
for one section of the Establishment would have been 
preferable to choices dictated by political or family 
interests; but Lord Shaftesbury, in his diary, disposes 
of the accusation. Altogether the charge was true, he 
said, of the first bishops; they were decidedly of an 
Evangelical character, but after Lord Palmerston's 
junction with the Peelites, that is after 1859, the best 
men were chosen, no matter to which wing of the 
Church they professed to belong."^ 

x4nd now for the most serious accusation that has 
been brought against Lord Palmerston by political 

* Hodder's Life of the Seventh Earl of Shaftesbury, vol. iii. pp. 
196-200. 

14 * 



212 LIFE OF VISCOUNT PALMFRSTON. 

thinkers — that he degraded public opinion. Now this, 
and similar charges, practically resolve themselves into 
two : — That Lord Palmerston approached matters of 
grave importance with levity, and that he deliberately left 
undone much that he ought to have done. To the 
former of them candour compels a reluctant assent ; but 
even that assent need not necessarily be unqualified. 
For, in the first place, instances of misplaced flippancy, 
like the remarks at the Napier banquet, are unfortu- 
nately remembered far more easily, and lend themselvee 
far more readily to quotation by the severe critic than 
passages of dignified earnestness. It is only just to 
recollect that outbreaks like the ** honourable and re- 
verend gentleman " speech were far rarer with Lord 
Palmerston during his last years, and never so accen- 
tuated. And if Lord Palmerston failed sometimes 
to strike a deeply reverberating note, the reason is, 
perhaps, to be found in the fact that he was always, 
in his latter days, compelled by the weakness of his 
eyesight to speak without preparation. But there were 
occasions on which he rose to a height worthy of his 
subject. The death of Cavour was one ; and there is 
a good deal of distinction in some of his speeches at 
the time of the American war. 

When we come to the charge that Lord Palmerston 
was associated with no great distinct policy, it might be 
sufficient to reply that during his first Ministry he had to 
deal with the Crimean war and the Mutiny ; during the 
second he directed vast fiscal reforms, and it was cer- 
tainly not entirely from motives of self-preservation 
that, when the Government was attacked by Mr. Disraeli 
for the mismanagement of the Schlesvvig-Holstein ques- 
tion, the old Premier pointed .with pride to the finan- 
cial triumphs of the time as a reason why Parliament 



EOMB AFFAIES. 213 

and the nation might reasonably continue to support 
him. Besides he was over four-score years of age when 
he died ; the ideals of his manhood had for the most 
part been translated into fact, and when a statesman is 
over seventy he does not readily adopt new programmes. 
Mr. Cobden reproached Lord Palmerstonfor not advoca- 
ting the ballot; he replied that he did not believe in the 
ballot, and that he, not Mr. Cobden, had been placed by 
the nation at the head of affairs. 

It would [he said] no doubt be not at all right for followers to follow 
a leader from whom they differed, but it is too much to insist that the 
leader should follow them wherever they pleased. The hon. member 
says I have opposed the ballot. I have done so ; and I did it because 
I unfortunately differ from him in opinion upon that measure. He 
believes the ballot to be a moral good. I believe it would have an 
immoral effect. If he can convince me I am wrong, I would be most 
ready to adopt his views, but until that time comes, sitting here, sent 
by those whom I represent, to act according to the best of my judg- 
ment, I must take leave to act upon my own judgment and to oppose 
a measure which I think would be injurious to the public interests. 

It is, of course, undeniable that since Lord Palmerston 
passed away many extensive changes of unquestionable 
benefit have been effected, and many useful measures 
added to the statute book. But, without going into 
questions of the expediency of State interference and 
considerations of how far it is possible to make a 
people virtuous by acts of Parliament, it is surely only 
fair to urge that sufficient unto the day is the legis- 
lation thereof, and that the English, whose Constitution 
has been the growth of centuries, are the last nation 
in the world whom it would profit to be perpetually 
engaged in paroxysms of law-making. The constituen- 
cies of 1859 felt that enough had been done for the 
present in the cause of liberty, that they could linger 
awhile on the ebb tide of economic improvements. ** It is 



214 LIFE OF VISCOUNT FALMEB8T0N, 

pluin/' the Premier said in 1864, " that there does not 
exist the same desire for organic charge which was ob- 
servable some time ago. The fact is that organic 
changes were introduced more as a means than as an 
end, the end being great improvement in the whole of 
our economical legislation. All such changes as have 
been desirable have long since been effected, as the re- 
sult of our organic reforms, and therefore there is no 
such desire now for further innovations." He was per- 
fectly right ; for the Reform Bills passed since his day 
have been *' dishing " measures passed by politicians for 
the discomfiture of their adversaries rather than to 
satisfy any real popular demand. At the General Elec- 
tion of 1865 came the first symptoms of the desire 
for a new advance, and then Lord Palmerston died, 
happy, perhaps, in the opportunity of his death. The 
old constituencies were, besides, keenly interested in 
foreign politics, and sufficiently enlightened to see 
that what was going on in the East or in the 
United States was of supreme moment to themselves. 
In that respect their successors have changed for the 
worse. And they were right in regarding Palmerston 
as a safe guardian of the national honour. For, unless 
the preceding pages have been written wholly in vain, 
it is almost superflous to say here that he never ceased 
for a single moment to keep before the nation the great 
lesson that Empires are kept as they are gained, by 
courage, self-reliance, and the rejection of morbid self- 
consciousness. 

His policy with regard to Ireland was one of simple 
common sense ; he had no belief that legislation could 
fight against nature, but he did believe that a firm 
administration of the law would produce security and 
so attract capital to the country. In the last great 



HOME AFFAIRS. 215 

speech he ever made, his views were expounded with 
remarkable clearness. It contained an eloquent tribute 
to the talents and industry of the Irish peasantry, and 
it assigned the paramount reason for the continued emi- 
gration of the Irish to the peculiarities of their climate. 

You cannot expect [he continued] that any artificial remedies 
which legislators can invent can reconstruct the laws of nature, and 
keep in one country a population which finds it to its advantage to 
emigrate to another. Things will find their level, and until by some 
means or other there shall be provided in Ireland the same remunera- 
tion for labour, and the same inducement to remain which are afforded 
by other countries, you cannot by any laws which you can devise pre- 
vent the people from seeking elsewhere a better condition of things 
than exists in their own country. We are told that tenant-right and 
a great many other things will do it. None of these things will have 
the slightest effect. As to tenant-right, I may be allowed to say that 
I think it is equivalent to landlord's wrong. Tenant-right, as I un- 
derstand it to be proposed, would be little short of confiscation ; and 
though it might cause the landlords to emigrate, it certainly would not 
keep the tenants at home. The real question is how can you create 
in Ireland that demand and reward for labour which would render the 
people of Ireland willing to remain at home, instead of emigrating to 
England or Scotland on the one hand, or to the North American States 
on the other. Nothing can do that except the influence of capital. 

He was as firmly opposed to the creation of fixity of 
tenure by statute as was Mr. Gladstone when he intro- 
duced the Land Act of 1870. With regard to compen- 
sation for improvements, however. Lord Palmerston's 
Government in 1860 passed an important Act, by which, 
in cases where landlord and tenant agreed, compensation 
could be fixed by a Government valuer, and secured in 
the form of an annuity on the estate. Thus he believed 
that legislation could accomplish something for Ireland, 
though he shrank from banishing political economy to 
Jupiter and Saturn. 

His views on the terribly vexed topic of Irish Univer- 
sity education were equally moderate. Undenomina- 



216 LIFE OF VISCOUNT PALMEBSTON, 

tional education was the only solution, and he thought 
that the conferment of degrees might safely he entrusted 
to the aggregate university body of the Queen's Col- 
leges. The experience of Maynooth, ** a place where young 
men were brought up to be bigoted in religion, to feel 
for Protestants theological hatred, and to feel political 
hatred against England,^' made him adverse to granting 
degrees to the Catholic College, even if, as Mr. Glad- 
stone attempted to contrive in his Irish Education Bill, 
it formed one of a number of afiBliated institutions. 
But he died before the questions advanced into the 
political foreground. 



217 



CHAPTER XIV. 

FEANCE AND THE UNITED STATES. 

1860-1863. 

Lord Palmerston's distrust of NapoleoB — Permanent and Special 
Reasons — Speech, on the Fortifications Bill and Conversation with 
Count Flahault — The Anglo-French Expedition to China — The 
American Civil War — England's declaration of neutrality — The 
Trent and Alabama affairs — The Mexican expedition. 

Distrust of France and of the Emperor of the French 
was the distinguishing feature of Lord Palmerston's 
foreign policy during the last five years of his life. And, 
though it may seem inconsistent that the Statesman who 
had heen the pivot of the Anglo-French alliance during 
the Crimean war, should abruptly part company with his 
former friend and become his undisguised opponent, the 
Prime Minister was in reality no more inconsistent than 
when, at an earlier period of his career, he had thrown 
over the entente cordiale with Louis Philippe. For 
with Palmerston the interests of his country were all in 
all, and he would never have consented to surrender 
an infinitesimal part of them to further the designs of 
Louis Napoleon or anyone else. He had trusted the 
Emperor to the last; perhaps, during the Italian cam- 



218 LIFE OF VISCOUNT PALMEBSTON. 

paign beyond the limits of prudence. But his eyes were 
opened by the annexation of Nice and Savoy, still more 
by the "natural frontiers" theory, which was then put 
forward as the reason for that act of Vandalism, and the 
additional violation of the arrangements of 1815 com- 
mitted by Napoleon when he refused to hand over to 
Switzerland, Chablais and Faucigny, the northern dis- 
tricts of Savoy, which had been declared by the Con- 
gress of Vienna to share in the neutrality of the Hel- 
vetic Federation. The *' natural frontiers" theory was 
evidently capable of being put into practice in several 
directions, practically towards the Rhine, where the re- 
sistance, thanks to the want of cohesion among the 
German states, would possibly be feeble in the extreme. 
The Cabinet was constrained to declare through the 
mouth of Lord John Russell that upon such an unsettle- 
ment of the peace of Europe, England would not pur- 
sue a policy of isolation. 

Lord Palmerston was no milk-and-water enemy, and 
his distrust of the Emperor was undoubtedly to some 
degree exacrgerated. Napoleon might have had '* a mind 
like a rabbit-warren," but it did not necessarily follow, 
from his recent proceedings, thathe had intended all along 
to " avenge Waterloo," and that his design was to beat 
*' with our aid or with our concurrence or with our neu- 
trality, first Russia and then Austria, and by dealing 
with them generously to make them his friends in any 
subsequent quarrel with us." That was a somewhat 
unsubstantial specimen of a deductive argument, and 
Lord Palmerston was in all probability equally under a 
delusion when he ascribed to the French Emperor the 
design of instigating Spain to seize Tangiers, and so, by 
occupying fortified points on each side of the gut of 
Gibraltar, of virtually shutting England out of the Medi- 



FRANCE AND THE UNITED STATES, 219 

terranean. His suspicions were also based upon a slight 
substratum of fact when he accused Napoleon, who, as 
mandatory of the Powers, had sent an expedition to 
put down a bloody and barbarous war of religion be- 
tween the Druses and Maronites in Syria, of being 
actuated by the desire of permanently occupying that 
country. Lord Palmerston seems, in fact, to have 
hardly appreciated the position of the man of Decem- 
ber. Napoleon was not ungrateful ; he was fully con- 
scious, as his letters to the Queen and the Prince Con- 
sort clearly prove, that he owed nearly everything to 
England. She had been the first power to give him a 
status; and without her make- weight, he would never 
have been able to pose, even for a moment, as the 
holder of the European balance. If the French alliance 
was useful to Lord Palmerston, the English alliance was 
to the Emperor as the breath of his nostrils. 

At the same time there were both permanent and 
special reasons for regarding the Emperor of the French 
as an untrustworthy ally. The permanent reasons were 
compressed in the contradictions of his position. The 
elected of a plebiscite, the crowned ex-Oarbonaro, was 
logically bound to assist subjects against the sovereigns, 
on the other hand, a ruler who claimed to govern by 
Divine right, was equally bound to uphold the royal, 
and particularly the Papal, power. He had thus no 
firm basis of action ; and, as the author of the coifp cCelat, 
the patentee of a veiled autocracy, he was irresistibly 
driven to risky adventures abroad, so as to distract 
the French nation from the spectacle of ministerial cor- 
ruption and financial mismanagement, in which the 
Second Empire was rapidly being engulfed. The man 
of December was, in short, developing into the man of 
Mexico and Sedan. 



220 LIFE OF VISCOUNT PALMEBSTON. 

The special reasons were to be found in the vast naval 
preparations which were being hurried on in the French 
ports, and which evidently menactd a maritime power. 
It was in vain that the Emperor pretested that his navy 
was not sufEcient for his wants, and that Mr. Cobden, 
of course in perfect good faith, attempted to persuade 
the Cabinet that the alarm was entirely baseless. 

We know [said Lord Palmerston, on the Fortifications Bill] that 
the ntmost exertions are made and still are making, to create a navy- 
very nearly equal to our own — a navy which cannot be required for 
purposes of defence for France, and which, therefore, we are justified 
in looking upon as a possible antagonist we may have to encounter — a 
navy which, under present arrangements, would provide to our neigh- 
bours the means of transporting within a very few hours a large and 
formidable number of troops to our coast. 

And he made no disguise of the fact that the increased 

expenditure on our defences was necessitated by the 

attitude of France. 

It is impossible for any man to cast his eyes over the face of 
Europe, and to see and hear what is passing, without being convinced 
that the future is not free from danger. It is difficult to say where 
the storm may burst ; but the horizon is charged with clouds which 
betoken the possibility of a tempest. The Committee, of course, knows 
that in the main I am speaking of our immediate neighbours across 
the channel, and there is no use in disguising it. No one has any 
right to take offence at considerations and reflections which are 
purely founded upon the principles of self-defence. 

A few months previously, Lord Palmerston had stated 
his meaning with even more deiiniteness in the well- 
known conversation with old Count Flahault, then French 
Ambassador in London, as they drove together to the 
House of Commons. He bluntly told him that it was 
impossible to trust the Emperor any longer; and that if 
war was forced upon England, England would fearlessly 
accept it, 

*' This was very spirited and becoming,^' was the ver- 
dict of Greville in one of the last entries in his journal 



FRANCE AND THE UNITED STATES. 221 

upon an imperfect report of the conversation being 
transmitted to him by Lord Clarendon. And though it 
is proverbially difficult to prove a negative, the terms of 
the Emperor's letter of self-exculpation to Count Per- 
signy of the 23rd of July 1860 fairly warrant the con- 
clusion that in this case post hoc Qndi j^rojyter hoc were 
identical, and that war was averted by Lord Palmerston's 
firm language, backed up by preparations for war. At 
all events, the relations between the two countries grew 
considerably less fraught with danger, and the inter- 
national friendship was almost reconnected before the 
close of the year by the success of the joint Anglo-French 
expedition to China, under Sir Hope Grant aud General 
Montauban, better known as Count Palikao. Pekin was 
taken, and the ratification of the important Treaty of 
Tien-tsin, which had been signed by Lord Elgin two 
years previously, was at length wrung from the Celestial 
Government. 

The breach was, however, never completely healed, 
and it was well that the British Government continued 
to be on its guard against the dreamer of the Tuileries ; 
otherwise, we should have been almost inevitably em- 
broiled in the American Civil war. More than once in 
the course of that struggle, the Emperor of the French 
urged our Ministers to recognise the Southern States, 
but he was always met with a firm but courteous refusal. 
That refusal was greatly to their credit. There could 
be no doubt that there was m England a strong cur- 
rent of feeling in favour of the South, especially among 
the upper classes. Material interests may be cousi- 
dered to have influenced the commercial stratum of 
society more than the fact that the Virginians could 
trace descent from the Cavaliers. The closure of the 
Southern harbours would cut oif the cotton trade, and 



222 LIFE OF VISCOUNT TALMFBSTON. 

inflict vast losses upon manufacturers, if not, as actually 
occurred, famine upon their workmen. Mr. Gladstone 
gave expression to a very prevalent feeling, when, in his 
famous speech at Manchester, he declared that Mr. 
Jefferson Davis had made an army, had made a navy, 
and, more than that, had made a nation. 

How far Lord Palmerston shared the views of 
his Chancellor of the Excliequer it is difficult to say 
with any appoach to certainty. Mr. Ashley tells 
us that though he admired the American people, the 
politicians of the United States appeared to him to 
fail on the score of character; and he certainly would 
not have committed himself to remarks about the " un- 
fortunate rapid movements " of the Federal troops at 
the battle of Bull's Run, unless he had anticipated a 
speedy triumph for the Confederate cause. All the more 
credit is due to him for having observed a complete 
neutrality at the outset of the struggle. A letter to Mr. 
Ellice establishes beyond all doubt the prudence of his 
motives. He was all for non-intervention until the 
" wire edge of the craving appetite for conflict had 
worn off"''; and he pointed out that it was impossible to 
intervene upon any sound basis, except that of separa- 
tion, the discussion of which would evidently be prema- 
ture, or without committing ourselves to an acknow- 
ledgment of the principle of slavery, and the right to 
pursue fugitive slaves from State to State. But, it may 
be said, did not Her Majesty's Government, by the 
act of proclaiming neutrality, acknowledge the South 
as a belligerent power, and so virtually play into its 
hands ? The answer is conclusive and complete. Un- 
less the South was acknowledged as a belligerent power, 
there was obviously no war going on. If there was no 
war, the English Government could not be expected 



FRANCE AND THE UNITED STATES. 223 

to recognise the blockade of the Sontliern ports. 
The recognition of the South as a belligerent power 
was indeed to the advantage of the North, as its advo- 
cates discovered when, in the crisis of the English 
cotton-famine, numerous appeals were made to Mini- 
sters in the House of Commons to break the blockade, 
which was paralyzing the energies and stopping the 
supplies of the Confederate Government. Fortunately, 
Lord Palmerston and his colleagues stood firm ; and 
sought relief for the deficiency, not in embroiling 
themselves in their neighbours' quarrel, but in drawing 
supplies of cotton from other parts of the world. 

The labyrinths of international law had also to be 
threaded in the two chief causes of dispute between the 
English and United States Governments, the Trent 
and the Alabama affairs. In the first. Earl Eussell, 
and, by implication. Lord Palmerston, behaved with the 
utmost promptitude and spirit. There could be no doubt 
whatever that Captain Wilkes was entirely in the wrong 
when he compelled the Trent to lay to, and carried off 
Mr. Slidcll and Mr. Mason, the Confederate envoys, as 
prisoners on board the San Jacinto. It was a gross vio- 
lation of the law of nations, an arbitrary assertion of 
that right of search which had been abandoned by the 
United States, and against which, when exercised by 
Lord Palmerston, for the benefit of kidnapped negroes, 
they had never ceased to protest. There was, besides, 
an impression abroad, which the Prime Minister at first 
shared, that the deed was not the spontaneous act of a 
hot-headed captain, but that it had been deliberately 
planned and executed by the United States Government, 
Under the circumstances Earl liussell was amply justi- 
fi.ed in sending out a demand for an apology and the 
liberation of the envoys, and in limiting the answer to 



224 LIFE OF VISCOUNT FALMEBSTON. 

a period of seven days. Nor can any objection be 
taken to the tone of his despatch to Lord Lyons, after it 
had been toned down by the advice of the dying Prince 
Consort ; even the American Secretary, Mr. Seward, 
acknowledged it to be ** courteous and friendly — not 
dictatorial or menacing," and his apology was ample. 
But why send 8,000 or 10,000 troops to Canada, asked 
Mr. Cobden, after the United States Minister, Mr. 
Adams, had told the British Government that the act 
of Captain Wilkes was not sanctioned by the Washing- 
ton Cabinet. Lord Palmerston's answer was, as usual, 
the sound one, that peace is best preserved by showing 
that you are not afraid of war. 

The American Minister did not tell us that the act of Captain 
Wilkes was disapproved ; he did not tell us that it would be dis- 
avowed; he did not tell us that the insult to the British flag would be 
atoned for by the surrender of the persons who were taken from the 
British ship Trent. Therefore, the communication which Mr. Adams 
made, and made with the very best intentions, was not a communica- 
tion upon which we would have been justified in acting, so far as to 
forego any measure of precaution which in our opinion was necessary. 
But everybody recollects the ferment which prevailed in the United 
States, the language held at public meetings, the honours paid to 
Captain Wilkes at the Theatre, the language held in Congress, and 
also the letter of the Secretary to the Naval Department, approving 
the conduct of that officer. Then, I say, we were justified in assuming 
that that difficulty might not terminate in a satisfactory and amicable 
manner. That being the case, I hold that we should have been ex- 
tremely blamable if we had not taken the precautions which we 
adopted. . . We should only have been misleading the American 
Government into the supposition that after all we might not really be 
in earnest. And I do believe that the measures we took were most 
materially conducive to opening their eyes to the consequences of a 
refusal, thereby enabling their calm judgment to determine upon the 
course which it was most for their interest that they should adopt. 

Lord Lyons, who was not an alarmist, and who had 
in addition the advantage of being on the spot, was of 
precisely the same opinion. 



FEANCE AND THE UNITED STATES, 225 

Of course the Trent affair left bitter memories behind 
it, and their workings are to be seen conspicuously in the 
controversy about tlie Alabama and the other privateers 
which were built for the South in English dockyards, 
and sometimes manned by British crews. If England 
had the law on her side in the matter of the Trent^ 
America had no less the principle of equity with her in 
the case of the Alabama. But this Lord Palmerston 
and Earl Eusseli hardly appreciated enough ; and when 
the frigate started on her destroying career from Bir- 
kenhead, without the smallest attempt at concealment 
as to her real character, and in spite of the vigorous 
protests of Mr. Adams, the Prime Minister based his 
defence on a textual exposition of the Foreign Enlist- 
ment Act. You could not, he said, seize a vessel under 
the act unless you have evidence on oath confirming a 
just suspicion. 

That evidence was wanting in this case. The American Minister 
came to my noble friend the Foreign Secretary, and said, " I tell you 
this, and I tell you that, I 'm sure of this, and I 'm sure of that " ; but 
when he was asked to produce evidence on oath, which was the only 
thing on which we could ground any proceedings, he said that the in- 
formation was furnished him confidentially, that he could not give 
testimony on oath, but that we ought nevertheless to act on his asser- 
tions and suspicions, which he was confidezit were well founded. 
What would happen if we were to act in that way ? When a vessel 
is seized unjustly and without just grounds, there is a process of 
law to come afterwards, and the Government may be condemned in 
heavy costs and damages. Why are we to urxdertake an illegal mea- 
sure which may have had those consequences, simply to please the 
agent of a foreign Government ? 

The position was full of difficulties ; but it was obvious 
that breaches of neutrality were being committed, and 
that it was the duty of the English Government to put a 
stop to them. The Americans retorted that self-preser- 
vation was the first law of nature; and, though Mr. 

15 



226 LIFE OF VISCOUNT PALMFRSTON, 

Adams could not effect the detention of the Alahamai 
he enforced that of two ironclad rams under threat of 
war. Even if the dispute ended there, the British 
Government would have come out of it second best ; 
but, as everyone knows, it dragged on until it was 
finally settled against England on most points by the 
Geneva tribunal. Lord Palmerston did not live to see 
that day ; and as the discussion of '* might-have-beens " 
is invariably sterile, it is not very profitable to speculate 
at length on which of the alternatives, war or arbitra- 
tion, he would have elected to adopt. One thing is 
quite certain, that he would not have submitted for a 
moment to the monstrous Indirect Claims. The manage- 
ment of the Alabama affair by the Palmerston Govern- 
ment was a blunder, but the recognition of the South, 
to which several of its members were apparently by 
no means adverse, would have been a worse one, and, on 
the whole, they may be considered to have come out of 
an exceedingly trying crisis with a fair amount of credit. 
It was but natural, as the Prime Minister said, that 
when we endeavoured to maintain a perfect neutrality 
between two parties who had quarrelled, we should 
satisfy neither. At least we had shown by a prompt 
despatch of troops to Canada, and by the vote for the 
fortification of Quebec, which was one of the last acts 
of Lord Palmerston's administration, that we were not 
to be cowed by any manifestations of spread-eagleism 
on the part of the American press and people. 

Though the Ministry were not to be lured into a recog- 
nition of the Southern States of America to oblige the 
Emperor of the French, they committed themselves to 
a participation in the Mexican expedition, the argu- 
ments for which really, though not ostensibly, rested 
on the supposition that the South would triumph, and 



FRANCE AND THE UNITED STATES. 227 

in the hour of victory would be glad to strengthen 
herself by an alliance with the gimcrack Empire which 
he proposed to erect on the ruins of the Mexican Ee- 
public. In so doing, they undoubtedly embittered their 
relations with the North, and became entangled in an en- 
terprise from which they were speedily obliged to beat a 
retreat. Not that the grievances of England, France, 
and Spain, the signatories of the Convention of 1861, 
against the Mexican Republic, were not perfectly genuine. 
During the anarchy which for years had desolated that 
unhappy State, English subjects had been exposed to all 
kinds of outrage, and redress had never been obtained. 
Agreements which had been made by various presidents 
to set aside a certain portion of the customs receipts for 
the satisfaction of foreign bondholders, had never been 
fully carried out; the house of the British Legation had 
been robbed of part of the money that was actually 
paid, and another portion had been carried off while on 
its way to the coast. At the same time, Lord Palmer- 
ston's Government were hardly well-advised in pushing 
matters to an extremity at that particular moment. 
The prospect of French and Spanish co-operation was 
perhaps tempting ; but, on the other hand, a war with 
the North appeared to be imminent over the Trent 
affair, and the circumstances of Mexico herself ap- 
peared to counsel delay. For, bad as the government 
of the Red Indian Juarez was, it was the government of 
a strong man, and should have been allowed time to 
make head against its clerical antagonists, instead of 
being coerced to satisfy wrongs which had been com- 
mitted for the most part by its predecessors. Besides, 
there lurked in the minds of two of the signatory 
Powers a shrewd suspicion that the third was not 
strictly to be relied upon, and it was found advisable to 

15 * 



228 LIFE OF VISCOUNT PALMEB8T0N, 

insert an article in the Convention by which the three 
Powers bound themselves not to interfere with the form 
of government established in Mexico. When it appeared 
that these suspicions were only too well based, that 
Napoleon had not only determined to overthrow the 
Mexican Republic, but actually had his nominee, the 
unfortunate Archduke Maximilian, in waiting, there 
was nothing left for the English Government but to 
withdraw themselves from the Convention, and their small 
force of 700 marines from the expedition. At least 
there was no hesitation on the part of the Cabinet, and 
they extricated themselves from a dangerous enterprise 
without loss of dignity. 



229 



CHAPTER XV. 

POLAND AND SCHLESWIG-HOLSTEIN. 

1863-1865. 

The Polish Rebellion — Policy of the Cabinet — The proposed European 
Congress — The Schleswig-Holstein Question — Motives of the 
Powers — English advice to Denmark — The Cabinet determines on 
eutrality — The Conference of London — Lord Palmerston on the 
state of Europe — The Danish debate — Palmerston's last victory — 
The General Election of 1865 — Lord Palmerston's last illness and 
death — Conclusion. 

From the hour of the withdrawal of the English con- 
tingent from the Mexican expedition to the last day of 
his life, Lord Palmerston never laid aside his distrust of 
the Emperor Napoleon. It became a fixed idea with 
him, and when opportu^Hies presented themselves for 
reconstituting the alliance of the Western Powers he 
deliberately rejected them. Such an opportunity was 
the Polish rebellion of 1863. The cause of the insur- 
gents, gallantly maintained against overwhelming num- 
bers, was extremely popular in England ; it was favoured 
by statesmen of all shades of opinion, and was the 
theme of enthusiastic resolutions passed at swollen 
mass meetings. Food for eloquent periods was espe- 
cially to be found in the proceedings of the new 



230 LIFE OF VISCOUNT PALMEBSTON. 

Prussian Minister, Herr von Bifemarck, who had turned 
the occasion to his own ends, and at the same time pre- 
vented the spread of the rebellion, by proposing to the 
Russian Chancellor — and the proposal was gladly 
accepted — that the two Governments should sign a con- 
vention authorising the troops of each nation to cross 
their respective frontiers in pursuit of fugitive rebels. 
ThiK ofrim method of exterminatinsr the revolt aroused a 
perfect storm of indignation throughout the country; 
and a war for the liberation of Poland would un- 
doubtedly have been very popular. Nor should we have 
gone to the battle without allies. France would have 
plunged enthusiastically into the struggle, for affection 
for the Poles had been for centuries a national pro- 
clivity, and her ruler was drawn in the same direction 
by the double consideration that the reconstruction of 
Poland was a Napoleonic tradition, and that success on 
the Vistula would detract attention from the failure 
imminent in Mexico. As there was no fear of the move- 
ment extending into Galicia, the Austrian Government 
would certainly not have departed from a friendly 
neutrality. 

Lord Palmerston made no secret of his sympathies 
with the insurgents. He wrote a letter to Baron 
Briinnow in which he bluntly told him that he regarded 
the Polish rebellion as the just punishment inflicted by 
Heaven on Russia for her numerous attempts to stir up 
revolution in the Christian Provinces of the Porte. 
In the House of Commons he was equally outspoken 
against Prussia. He hoped that the February con- 
vention would not be carried into execution, " because 
such an interference of Prussia with what was then 
passing in Poland would excite, as it had already 
excited, great condemnation everywhere, and if that 



POLAND AND SCHLESWIG-HOLSTEIN, 231 

conventional interference were followed by acts it would 
cast discredit on the Government of Prussia/' But 
the Prirae Minister and bis colleagues were determined 
not to commit themselves to any threat of intervention. 
They thoroughly distrusted the Emperor of the French, 
and declined his invitation to address, in concert with 
Austria, a violent note of remonstrance to the Prussian 
Government. The Premier, in a letter to the King of 
the Belgians, described the invitation as a trap. They 
felt, also, that it was useless to engage in a war of which 
the object would have been the establishment of Poland 
as an independent State, when the dissensions among 
the insurgents proved that the basis for such a State 
was altogether wanting. Under the circumstances, 
the diplomatic action of the three Powers was barren of 
result. Lord Palmerston helped to frame some able 
despatches the aim of which was to convince Prince 
GortschakofiF that the promises of a constitution made 
to the Poles at the Congress of Vienna had never been 
carried out; Austria took the lead in declaring that 
Poland was a source of never-ending disquietude to 
Europe ; and the three Powers agreed upon six sugges- 
tions of reform which they urged in concert upon the 
Kussian Government. But^ unaccompanied by a 
menace of war, their remonstrances at Berlin and St. 
Petersburg were not treated with much respect, and 
signally failed to ameliorate the lot of Poland. 

Lord Palmerston was quite as adverse to the next 
adventure of the Emperor of the French, his proposal 
that the treaties of 1815 should be submitted to a 
European Congress. It was known that Napoleon had 
been brooding over the idea for many years, and when 
it was at last put into shape it certainly contained a 
certain amount of plausibility. There was justice in 



232 LIFE OF VISCOUNT PALMEBSTON. 

his contention that most of the arrangements of the 
treaties of Vienna were destroyed, modified, mis- 
understood, or menaced. But airectly Lord Palmer- 
ston's keen intellect played round the proposal be saw 
its absurdity. He pointed out in the House of Com- 
mons that unanimity was extremely unlikely, and that 
a single dissentient voice would upset every suggestion 
before the Congress. In a letter to the King of the 
Belgians he described the assembling of a Congress as a 
measure inapplicable to the present state of Europe. 
With regard to past modifications of the treaties, some, 
such as the independence of Belgium, and the creation 
of the kingdom of Italy, required no sanction ; others, 
such as the annexation of Cracow by Austria, we should 
not care to sanction. With regard to the future, an 
infinite number of squabbles and animosities would 
arise, especially if possible changes of territory were 
taken into consideration — for instance, if France were 
to ask for the Rhine provinces, Austria for Bosnia or 
Moldo-Wallachia, Spain for Gibraltar. The Congress 
was, therefore, curtly declined by Earl Russell in the 
name of our Government, and the Emperor had to 
digest his mortification as best he could. 

Thus, while the Northern Powers were united, those 
of Western Europe were hostile and divided. Bismarck 
had everything in his favour when he proceeded to tear 
up the Treaty of London and to force on the solution 
of the Schleswig-Holstein question. Viewed by the 
light of later experience, it is impossible to pronounce 
that treaty to have been other than a mistake. It was 
drawn up without sufficient knowledge and precautions ; 
it attempted to perpetuate a wholly obsolete state of 
affairs. In the end, the separation of the Duchies from 
Denmark was a benefit to Europe. But it would be 



POLAND AND SGHLESWIG-EOLSTEIN, 233 

unjust to blame Lord Palmerston for not having fore- 
seen the great things that Bismarck was to accomplish 
for Germany. There was nothing in the past of the 
new director of Prussian statesmanship which desig- 
nated him as a man likely to emancipate his country 
from the unworthy policy which she had pursued sinco 
the Crimean war. Lord Palmerston may he forgiven 
for not having seen in Bismarck's treatment of the 
Schleswig-Holstein question any more elevated feeling 
than a desire to get Kiel as a German harbour, and for 
being, therefore, determined to maintain the integrity of 
Denmark at the cost of Prussia. Nor does the fact that 
he was wrong put the rest of Europe in the right. The 
treaty had been mainly the work of a Russian diplo- 
matist. Baron Briinnow; though it had not been signed 
by the German Federation as a body, several of the 
States had afterwards acceded to it, and Prussia and 
Austria had signed as great Powers. He could hardly 
have foreseen that when the treaty was put to the test, 
Russia would shrink from her engagements, bought off 
by the co-operation of Bismarck in the suppression of 
the Polish rebellion ; that Austria and the German Diet 
would blitidly play into the hands of Prussia, and thereb/ 
bring upon themselves ultimate disaster and extinc- 
tion. If English statesmanship was at a discount during 
this period, that of Austria and Saxony was so in a 
double measure ; and it is difficult on any grounds to 
justify the support given by the German Diet to the 
Augustenburg candidate for the Duchies, the son of the 
one agnate who had expressly resigned his rights of 
succession. Bismarck alone knew what he was about. 

If the Treaty of London was a mistake, the English 
Cabinet at all events tried to carry it out with the 
utmost good faith. It fully acknowledged the position 



'234 LIFE OF VISCOVNT PALMEB8T0N. 

of Sclileswig and Holstein as members of the German 
Federation ; the King of Denmark undertook not to 
incorporate Schleswig with the rest of his monarchy, 
and guaranteed to the Duchies the continuance of their 
autonomy. And the efforts of Earl Russell to prevent 
the Danes from violating the treaty were unceasing. 
He protested again and again against the schemes of 
Frederick VII. for the '* Danification " of the Duchies ; 
he sent a special mission to dissuade him from the 
famous patent of 1863 by which he incorporated Scliles- 
wig in the kingdom of Denmark. When the German 
Diet decreed in consequence " federal execution " in 
Holstein, the British Cabinet made no attempt to pre- 
vent it, and their offer of mediation was made in a 
purely friendly spirit. Earl Russell also warned Chris- 
tian IX. against the consequences of following the evil 
example of his predecessor ; but his counsellors refused 
to listen to good advice, and reaped the consequences 
of their obstinacy. If they had shown moderation, 
they would have put the German Powers entirely in the 
wrong, and Denmark would have kept the Duchies, at 
all events, for the time being. 

The conduct of the Danes was undoubtedly actuated 
by a belief that England would draw the sword on their 
behalf. And at the close of the previous Session they 
had received a certain amount of countenance from 
Lord Palmerston, though not enough to justify their 
foolhardiness. 

It is impossible [he said, in the House of Commons] for any man 
who looks at the map of Europe, and who knows the great interest 
which the Powers of Europe feel in the independence of the Danish 
monarchy, to shut his eyes to the fact that war begun about a petty 
quarrel concerning the institutions of Holstein would, in all proba- 
bility, not end where it began, but might draw after it consequences 
which all parties who began it would be exceedingly sorry to have 



POLAND AND SOHLFSWIG-HOLSTEIN'. 235 

caused. . . . We are convinced — I am convinced at least — that if any 
Tiolent attempt were made to overthrow these rights and interfere 
[with the independence of Denmark], those who made that attempt 
would find in the result that it would not be Denmark alone with 
which they would have to contend. 

Lord Palmerston, as is well known, afterwards ex- 
plained that what he had intended to convey was not a 
threat of intervention, but a prophecy that some Power 
or other would intervene. The explanation was, of 
course, plausible; but whatever the meaning of the 
utterance, it was certainly rather injudicious. Still Count 
Beust has recently shown that Lord Palmerston was 
less the cause of their stubborn resistance than Bis- 
marck, who, to further his own ends, had mendaciously 
assured the Danes that England had actually threatened 
Germany with intervention, if hostilities should be 
opened.* When Lord Palmerston spoke, he reckoned 
upon Russia and France ; but when the war broke out, 
he found that Sweden was the only ally upon whom 
England and Denmark could depend. Russia had been 
bought off; and Napoleon, piqued by the refusal of 
England to attend his Congress, declined to stir in the 
quarrel, though definite overtures were twice made to 
him. Those overtures would have confined the war to 
the assistance of Denmark, for Lord Palmerston, even 
to save the Danes, would not sanction the conquest of 
the Ehenish Prussia by France, to the peril of Holland 
and Belgium. After the refusal of Napoleon, Lord Pal- 
merston came reluctantly to the conclusion that the 
Danes must be left to their fate. 

The truth is [he wrote to Earl Russell on February 13th, 1864] 
that to enter into a military conflict with all Germany on contmental 
ground would be a serious undertaking. If Sweden and Deiimark 

* Count JBeiist's Memoirs^ vol. i. , pp. 241-42. 



236 LIFE OF VISCOUNT PALMEBSTON, 

■were actively co-operating with us, our twenty thousand men ought 
to do a good deal ; but Austria and Prussia would bring two hundred 
thousand or three hundred thousand into the field, and would be joined 
by the smaller German States. 

The position was somewhat humiliating, hut as there 
had heen no pledge that we should come to the assist- 
ance of the Danes alone, there had heen no breach of 
faith. And what diplomatic influence England could exer- 
cise in favour of the Danes, she exercised without stint. 
By his personal authority with the Austrian ambassador, 
Lord Palmerston prevented the Austrian fleet from 
entering the Baltic and bombarding Copenhagen. At 
the Conference of London, Lord Clarendon nearly saved 
the situation by his proposal that Denmark should cede 
Holstein and the German part of Schlesvvig. The terms 
were better than the Danes ultimately obtained, and 
they were accepted by the German plenipotentiaries. But 
statesmanship at Copenhagen was unable to recog- 
nise accomplished facts, and from first to last the 
efforts of English diplomacy on behalf of the Danes 
were doomed to futility. 

It was least with no petulant qi/os ego that Lord 
Palmerston accepted the defeat of his policy. Writing 
to Earl Eussell the following year he dealt with the fate 
which was to be hoped for the Duchies, and at the same 
time indulged in one of the most remarkable political 
forecasts that has ever been penned. It was better, he 
considered, that Schleswig-Holstein should be absorbed 
into Prussia, than be formed into a petty German State. 

Prussia is too weak as she now is ever to be honest or independent 
in her action, and, with a view to the future, it is desirable that Ger- 
many, in the aggregate, should be strong, in order to control those 
two ambitious and aggressive Powers, France and Russia, that press 
upon her west and east. As to France, we know how restless and 
aggressive she is, and how ready to break loose for Belgium, for the 



POLAND ANB SCRLESWIG-HOLSTEIN. 237 

Rhine, for anything which she -would he likely to get without too 
great an exertion. As to Russia, she will, in due time, become a 
Power almost as great as the old Roman empire. She can become 
mistress of all Asia, except British India, whenever she chooses to 
take it ; and when enlightened arrangements have made her revenue 
proportioned to her territory, and railways have abridged distances, 
her command of men will become enormous, her pecuniary means 
gigantic, and her power of transporting armies over great distances 
most formidable. Germany ought to be strong in order to resist Russian 
aggression, and a strong Prussia is essential to German strength. 

This letter has not inaptly been called Lord Palmer- 
ston's legacy to the nation. 

The failure of the ministerial policy as a whole had 
been undeniable. It abounded in miscalculations and 
misapprehensions. Herr von Bismarck had been under- 
valued, the possibility of foreign co-operation had been 
too confidently anticipated, and the interests at stake 
had been misunderstood. Lord Palmerston did not dis- 
cover that it would, on the whole, have been to the 
advantage of Denmark to be quit of a population which 
had long been discontented and difficult to govern, until 
after the failure of the Conference. The Opposition 
naturally seized the opportunity to challenge the pro- 
ceedings of the Government. As at the time of the 
Don Pacifico aff'air, they were successful in the House 
of Lords, but suffered defeat in the House of Commons, 
through the skill and resource of Lord Palmerston. The 
victory was won by sheer generalship. Mr. Disraeli's 
attack was extremely telling, and ministers found it 
advisable to escape his condemnatory resolution by ac- 
cepting a colourless amendment moved by Mr. King- 
lake. The manoeuvre was transparent, but is was 
entirely successful. In support of the amendment the 
old Prime Minister made a remarkable speech, wind- 
ing up the debate in the early morning of the 9th of 



238 LIFE OF VISCOUNT PALMEBSTON. 

July. As usual, he spoke without the aid of a single 
note, and with the evident aim to be clear and convin- 
cing rather than brilliant and antithetical. It is not 
altogether correct to say that he dropped the questions 
immediately connected with the vote of censure almost 
immediately, that would have been an affront to the 
intelligence of the House, which so accomplished a 
master of Parliaments would be the last man to 
commit. As a matter of fact, more than half his 
speech dealt with the Danish question, and he made out 
a case which, if not altogether convincing, was dis- 
tinctly reasonable. And then he proceeded to the main 
point of his speech. Why had not the Opposition 
proposed a direct vote of want of confidence ? In that 
case he would have been able to show that during the 
five years during which his Government had been 
honoured with the confidence of the House and had 
carried on the Government, the country had continued 
in an unexampled state of prosperity. In a telling sum- 
mary he proceeded to take the Radicals captive by show- 
ing that on general, and especially on financial grounds, 
he and his colleagues had deserved well of their country. 
The Opposition cried "Question," but, as Mr. Ashley 
points out, the arguments had a good deal of bearing 
on the main question — the division. It is patht3tic 
to notice that Lord Palmerston in conclusion made 
use once more of the argument which he had in- 
troduced with such telling effect in the Don Pacifico 
speech : — 

I quite admit that hon. gentlemen opposite are perfectly entitled to 
make a great struggle for power. It is an honourable struggle, and I 
make it no matter of reproach. They are a great party, comprising 
a great number of men of ability and influence in the country, and 
they are perfectly entitled when they think the prize is within their 



POLAND AND SCHLESWIG-HOLSTMN. 239 

reach, to make an attack on those who hold it. But, on the other 
hand, I say that we have not done anything to deserve that the prize 
shall he taken from us. 

The Government escaped defeat by a majority of 
eighteen, and Lord Palmerston was secure for the brief 
remainder of his life. After the following session, 
which was for the most part uneventful, Parliament, 
having peacefully lived out its time, was dissolved on 
July 6th, 1865. At the General Election which followed, 
Lord Palmerston, whose popularity with the nation had 
become almost an article of faith, was once more re- 
turned for Tiverton, and secured a further lease of power 
for the Liberal party, though with a considerable 
increase of the Radical wing. But the veteran states- 
man was not destined to lead the party in another 
Parliament. He had nearly completed his eighty-first 
year, and had been a member of every administration, 
except those of Sir Robert Peel and Lord Derby, since 
1807. Already his iron frame had begun to show signs 
of giving way. He had been very ill at the time of 
the death of the Prince Consort, and his illness 
was certainly increased by his overpowering anxiety and 
grief. But he spent the whole of his eightieth birth- 
day on horseback ; and earlier in the year he rode 
from Cambridge House to Harrow, trotting the dis- 
tance, nearly twelve miles, within the hour. During 
the Session of 1865, however, he showed signs of 
feebleness, keeping to his post with great difficulty, 
and, after the General Election, he retired to Brocket, 
in Hertfordshire, a place which Lady Palmerston had 
inherited from Lord Melbourne. There the gout be- 
came very serious, and he made it worse by going out 
for a ride before he had fairly recovered from an attack. 
Finally, a chill brought on inflammation; and, though 



240 LIFE OF VISCOUNT PALMERSTON. 

on October the 17th he rallied wonderfully, in the night 
his case became hopeless, and shortly before eleven in 
the morning of the 18th he died. An interesting 
account of his last moments is to be found in the life 
of Lord Shaftesbury, and the description of the great 
philanthropist praying over the great statesman is one 
that, once read, is not easily forgotten. 

Lord Palmerston was buried in Westminster Abbey, 
and four years later Lady Palmerston was laid by his 
side. His funeral took place on October 27th, amidst 
a manifestation of popular sympathy, which showed 
how strong were the ties which bound the nation to its 
aged counsellor. As the coffin sank into the grave, a 
dark storm broke over the Abbey, until, as the service 
drew to its close, the sun appeared once more. His tomb 
is in the North Transept, that quarter which pious cus- 
tom has reserved for England's statesmen, near the last 
resting-places of the great men who before him upheld 
the honour of England in days of doubt and despair — 
the noble Chatham, and his nobler son, and Canning, 
and the much-misunderstood Castlereagh. Near it 
stands his fine statue by Jackson, confronted by that of 
Canning ; like a pair of sentinels, ever at their post, and 
ever on the watch. 



INDEX. 



A. 

Abd-el-Medjid, 70. 164. 

Aberdeen, Lord, 24, 42; foreign 
Minister, 83-95 ; and the 
Spanish marriages, 96-98 ; 
Premier, 145-160. 

Afghan War, the, 67, 68. 

Alabama affair, the, 225-226. 

Albert, Prince, differences of 
opinion with Palmerston, 130 ; 
memorandum of, 156 ; death of, 
239. 

Althorp, Lord, 4, 32. 

Arrow affair, 184. 

Ashburton, Lord, 91. 

Austria, relations with, 38, 58, 
73 ; and Cracow, 66, 108 ; and 
Switzerland. 113-116 ; and 
Italy, 117-119, 121-124; and 
Hungaiy, 126 ; and the Eastern 
question, 154, 164, 169-170, 
173 ; and Italy. 180-198 ; and 
Poland, 230-231; and Den- 
mark, 233 ; Palmerston on, 237. 



B. 

Ballot, the, 213. 

Belgium, Independence of, 41-51 ; 



in 1848, 119 ; offer of assistance 
by, 187. 

Bentinck, Lord G., on Portugal 
113. 

Beust, Count, 36, 236. 

Bismarck, 230, 233, 235. 

Bolgrad, 177, 178. 

" Bomba," see Naples. 

Brazil, 41. 

Bright, Mr., attacked by Pal- 
merston, 157, 166; defeated, 
186. 

Brougham, Lord, on Lord Pal- 
merston, 165 ; and Lady Pal- 
merston, 188. 

Briinnow, Baron, 71, 130, 172, 
176. 

Bulwer, SirH. (Lord Balling), 63, 
72, 74, 76; at Madrid, 100- 
106 ; dismissed from Spain, 
119 ; at the Porte, 180. 

Buol, Count, 169, 170. 

Burnes, Sir A., 67. 



c. 

Cambridge University contested 
by Palmerston, 6, 7, 20, 33. 

Canning, George, 8, 22, 23 ; Pal- 
merston on, 32. 

Carlo Alberto of Sardinia, 117, 
121-123; defeated at Novara, 
123. 

Carlos, Don, 56-62. 

16 



242 



INDEX. 



Cavour, Count, and Palmerston, 
190-193 ; and Lord Clarendon, 
192; at Plombieres, 193; di- 
plomacy of, 195-199 ; death of, 
199. 

China, war -with, 83-87 ; second 
Tvar with, 184-18G ; Anglo- 
French expedition to, 221. 

Christina, Queen Regent of Spain, 
56, 58, and the Spanish mar- 
riages, 96-lOG. 

Clarendon, Lord, 33, 78 ; becomes 
Foreign Secretary, 152-1 .')3; 
again Foreign Secretary, 165- 
166 ; at the Congress of Paris, 
172-174 ; and the United 
States, 176 ; and the Treaty of 
Paris, 177-179 ; and Walewski's 
despatch, 188 ; and Italy, 192- 
193 ; out of office, 201 ; and 
Denmark, 236. 

Cobden, Mr., and the Militia Bill, 
142 ; Palmerston on, 166 ; and 
China, 185 ; defeat of, 186 ; re- 
fuses office, 201 ; on Palmer- 
ston, 202 ; and Refoi-m, 204 ; on 
Mr. Gladstone, 205 ; and the 
defences, 207 ; treaty of, 209. 

Conspiracy to Murder Bill, 187- 
188. 

Cowley, Lord, 172, 180, 197. 

Cracow occujDied by Austria, 6Q ; 
annexation of, 108, 232. 

Crimean Expedition, the, 159, 
164. 

Croker, J. "W., and the New Whig 
Guide, 13 ; on Palmerston, 26 ; 
interview with Palmerston, 31. 



1>. 

Danubian Principalities, 151, 156, 
173, 178-179. 

Denmark, the succession ques- 
tion, 130-131 ; and Schleswig- 
Holstein, 232-237. 



Derby, Lord (Lord Stanley), 
motion on Portugal, 113 ; on 
Greece, 135 ; great ministry of, 
143-44 ; attempts to form a 
ministry. 162 ; on the treaty of 
Paris, 172 ; second ministry of 
188, 189. 

Disraeli, Mr., 175, 190. 

Drouyn de Lhuys, recall of, 132- 
34 ; at Vienna, 170. 

Dudley, Lord, 24, 25. 



E. 



Egypt and the Powers, 64-79; 

Palmerston on, 176. 
Ellice, Mr., 73, 222. 



P. 



Ferdinand, the Emperor, abdica- 
tion of, 126. 

France, relations with, 37, 40; 
and Belgium, 43-49 ; and Por- 
tugal, 55, 57 ; coolness towards 
England, 59-62 ; and the Sjaian 
question, 70-79 ; and Tahiti, 
93; and the Spanish marriages, 
96-106 ; subsequent results, 
107; Revolution of 1848, 119; 
Second Empire, 140 ; and the 
Eastern Question, 150, 154; 
and Italy, 193-198 ; relations 
with England, 217-221, 226, 
229-236. 

Flahault, Count, 220. 

Fortifications Bill, 208-209. 



INDEX. 



243 



a 

Garibaldi, 198. 

Gerard, Marshal, 47, 49. 

Gibson, Mr. Milner, 18G, 190. 

Gladstone, Mr. , letter of Palmer- 
ston to, 40 ; refuses to join the 
Conservatives, 162 ; resigns 
office, 163: in favour of peace, 
167; and Italy, 125, 190, 201 ; 
and the defences, 204-209. 

Gortschakoff, Prince, at Vienna, 
169, 170, 173; chicanery of, 
177-178; and Naples, 183; and 
Poland, 230-231; and Den- 
mark, 233. 

Graham, Sir James, on China, 84 ; 
and Reform, 148 ; at the Napier 
banquet, 157 ; death of, 201. 

Granville, Lord, 34, 45, 59, 73, 
78. 

Granville, Lord (son of above), 
Foreii^n Secretary, 143 ; at- 
tempts to form a ministry, 194. 

Greece, Palmerston on, 24, 27 ; 
Otho becomes king of, 53; 
coercion of, 131-137. 

Greville, Mr., 34, 75. 81, 82, 92, 
102, 106, 124, 140, 161, 172, 
188, 189. 

Grey, Earl, 30 ; Premier, 32. 

Guizot, 77, 78 ; and Aberdeen, 
92-93 ; and the Spanish mar- 
riages, 96-106; fall of, 119- 
120. 



H. 

Haynau affair, the, 139, 

Herat attacked by Persia, 66, 184. 

Herbert. Mr. S., 152, 162, 163, 

190. 
Herries, Mr., 22, 23. 
Holland, Lord, 33, 73, 74 ; death 

of, 76. 



Horsham, Palmerston elected at, 

7. 
Hume, Joseph, 12, 113. 
Hungary, revolution in (1848), 

126 ; refugee question, 127 5 

and Italy, 193. 
Huskisson, Mr., 23, 25, 31. 



L 



Ireland, Palmerston and, 214- 

216. 
Italy, Austrian rule in, 117 ; at- 
tempted reforms in, 118-119; 

revolution of 1848, 121-124; 

Sardinian contingent, 172, 191 ; 

Palmerston and, 190-199. 
Isabella, Queen of Spain, 56 ; her 

marriage. 106 ; dismisses Sir 

H. Bulwer, 119. 



K 

Kars, 164, 172, 173, 177. 
Kinglake, Mr., 149, 237. 
Kossuth, 126 ; his visit to Eng- 
land, 139 ; his mission, 193. 



L. 



Lamartine, 120-121, 123. 
Lansdowne, Lord, 6, 30 ; 



pro- 



244 



INDEX. 



posed as Leader of the Libe- 
rals 145; attempts to form a 
Ministry, 162; in the Cabinet, 
165 

Leopold I of Belgium, 46, 48, 51, 
231. 

Lewis, Sir G. C, 165, 188. 

Lieven, Madame de, 14, 102. 

Liverpool, Lord. Premiership of, 
9, 19, 21. 

Lombard}^, see Italy. 

London, Convention of (1841), 79; 
treatv of (1852), 131, 2.33. 

Louis Philippe, 43, 44, 47, 59-62, 
75, 78 ; and the Spanish mar- 
riages, 96-106 ; fall of, 119. 



Militia Bill, the, 143-144. 
Minto mission, the, 118. 
Mutiny, the, 18G. 



M. 



McLeod affair, the, 88-90. 

Mahmoud, 64, 65, 70. 

Malmesbury, Lord, 7, 9, 11. 

Malmesbury. Lord (grandson of 
above) on the cotip de'taf, 140 ; 
on the Czar, 141 ; and Italy, 
190 ; interview with Lady Pal- 
merston. 203. 

Maria, Donna, 27-28, 29, 56 ; her 
marriage, 110. 

Mehemet Ali, 64, 70, 76-77, 79. 

Melbourne, Lord, 24, 25, 30, 33, 
35, 59, 67 ; and Palmerston, 74- 
75; resigns office, 79. 

Menschikoif mission, the, 150. 

Metternich, Prince, 37, 38-39; on 
Spain, 58 ; on the Quadruple 
Treaty, 73 ; on the Spanish 
marriages, 105 ; and Cracow, 
109; and Switzerland, 113- 
116 ; and Italy, 117-119 ; fall 
of, 119. 

Mexican expedition, the, 227. 

Miguel, Dom, 27-28, 54-58, 111, 
112. 



N. 



Napier, Sir C, 55, 77 ; banquet 
to, 157. 

Naples, coercion of, 82 ; and the 
Sicilian rebellion, 118, 125; 
coercion of, 183 ; conquest of, 
198. 

Napoleon III., coup d'etat of, 140; 
and the Holy Places, 150 ; and 
the Eastern question, 164, 171, 
172 ; visit to England, 179 ; 
and Egypt, 179 ; relations with 
England, 182-183; attempt to 
murder, 187; and Italy, 193- 
199; and Savoy, 197, 218; 
schemes of, 218-221 ; and Po- 
land, 231 ; proposed Congress 
of, 231 ; and Denmark, 235. 

Nesselrode, Count, 53, 153. 

New Whig Guide, 13. 

Newtown, Palmerston elected at, 
7. 

Nicholas, Czar of Russia, 65, 66, 
71 ; visit to England, 151, 152. 

Normanby, Lord, 107, 109, 120. 



P. 

Pacifico affair, 132-137. 
Palmerston, second Viscotint, 
2-4 ; death of, 6. 



INDEX. 



245 



Palmerston, Lady (Mary Mee), 2, 
4 ; death of, 6. 

Palmerston, Henry John, third 
Viscount, birth, 2 ; education, 
4-6; enters Parharaent, 7; 
Lord of the Admiralty, 7 ; 
maiden speech, 8 ; Secretary at 
War, 9-12, 21-25; character, 
12-19 ; visits to France, 21 ; 
attempt on, 21 ; in opposition, 
25-31 ; Foreign Secretary, 32- 
79 ; his marriage, 80 ; in oppo- 
sition, 82-95 ; visit to Paris, 
95 ; again Foreign Secretary, 
96-139 ; dismissed from ofifice, 
140 ; Home Secretary, 146-160 ; 
temporary resignation, 149- 
150; first Ministry, 162-188; 
receives the Garter, 174 ; visit 
to Compiegne, 193 ; second 
Ministry, 200-239 ; last illness 
and death, 239-240; funeral, 
240. 

Palmerston, Lady (Lady Cowper), 
79-81, 188, 203; death of, 
240. 

Paper Duties Bill, 203, 205. 

Paris, Congress of, 172-174; 
treaty of, 176-179 ; Oavour at, 
191-193. 

Pedro, Dom, 27-28, 54-58. 

Peel, Sir R., 4, 51; Premier, 
83-95; on Portugal, 113; 
death of, 138. 

Persian war, 183-184. 

Persigny, Count, 182, 194. 

Pio Nono, 117, 122, 124. 

Poland, rebellion of (1830), 53- 
54; rebellion of (1863), 229- 
231. 

Portugal, Palmerston on, 26-30 ; 
English intervention in, 54-58 ; 
further intervention, 110-113. 

Presbytery of Edinburgh, Pal- 
merston's answer to, 147-148. 

Prussia, Palmerston's views on, 
130 ; and the Eastern question, 
154, 164; and Poland, 229- 
231; and Denmark. 232-236; 
Palmerston on, 237. 



Q. 



Quadrilateral Treaty, the, 72. 
Quadruple Treaty, the, 57. 



R. 



Radetzky, Marshal, 122, 123. 

Raglan, Lord, 158, 167. 

Roebuck, Mr., resolution on the 
Pacific© affair, 134; niotion of 
inquiry, 159, 164. 

Russell, Lord John (Earl), 74 ; 
attempts to form a ministry, 
94 ; Premier, 95 ; quarrel with 
Palmerston, 140-142 ; Reform 
Bill of, 148-150; proposed 
Palmerston for Secretary at 
War, 158 ; attempts to form a 
ministry. 162 ; resigns office, 
159 ; at Vienna, 163, 168-170 ; 
resigns office, 170 ; reconcilia- 
tion with Palmerston, 190; and 
Italj', 190, 194-198 ; on Reform^ 
203-204 ; Foreign Secretary, 
217-238. 

Russia, relations with, 40, 53; 
and Turkey, 65 ; and England, 
Q6, 70-79; and the Holy 
Places, 150 ; diplomacy of, 
150-156, 168-174 ; and Poland 
229-231; and Denmark, 133 
233 ; Palmerston on, 237. 



246 



INDEX. 



S. 

Saldanha, Count, 110-112. 

Sardinia and Savoy. See Italy. 

Schleswig-Holstein. See Den- 
mark. 

Sch-warzenburg, Prince, 126- 
128. 

Sobastiani, Count, 45-47. 

Serpents Island, 177, 178. 

Shaftesbury, Lord (Lord Ashley), 
18, 19, 80, 94, 143, 147, 240 ; 
his bishops, 211. 

Sicily, revolution in, 118, 125 ; 
freed by Garibaldi, 198. 

Sinope, Turkish fleet destroyed 
at, 156. 

Slave-trade, the, 39, 41, 90-91, 
93, 184. 

Soult, Marshal, 71, 72, 77. 

Spain, English intervention in, 
66-62 ; Spanish Legion, 60- 
62 ; Spanish marriages, 96- 
106; rupture with, 119. 

Stockmar, Baron, 87, 110, 142. 

Stratford de Redcliffe, Lord, 127, 
150, 154. 

Suez Canal, 180-182. 

Switzerland, revolution in, 113- 
116; and Prussia, 182. 

Syrian question, the, 64-79 ; reli- 
gious war in, 219. 



T. 



Talleyrand, Prince, 43, 44, 45, 

47,' 49, .59. 
Temple, Sir William, 2, 57, 58. 
Temples, the, 1, 2. 
Thiers, 72, 76, 77. 



Tiverton, Palmerston elected a 
33 ; speeches at, 144, 204 
election at (1865), 239. 

Trent affair, the 223-224. 

Turkey, Palmerston on, 27, 63 ; 
and Syria, 64-79 ; Menschikoflf's 
mission to, 151 ; declaration of 
war by, 155 ; conditions of 
peace with, 170, 176-178. 



u. 



United States, dispxites with, 87- 
92, 95, 175-176 ; civil war in, 
221-227. 

Unkiar Skelessi, treaty of, 65. 

Urquhart, Mr., 37, 75. 



V. 



Venetia. See Italy. 

Victor Emanuel, visits England, 
191. 

Victoria, Queen, and Palmerston, 
94; on the Spanish marriages, 
102 ; her Memorandum, 138 ; 
letters of Palmerston to, 170, 
171 ; gives Palmerston the Gar- 
ter, 174; and Italy, 196 
letters of Palmerston to, 206. . 



INDEX. 



247 



Vienna Conference, the first, 154 ; 

the second, 168-170. 
Villafranca, treaty of, 195-196. 



w. 



Walewski, Count, and the coup 
d'etat, 140; and Kussia, 177, 
182 : and the Orsini affair, 187, 

Wehster, Daniel, 89-91. 

Wellington, Duke of, premiership 



of, 23-31 ; on Portugal, 56 ; on 
the Chinese War, 86 ; on the 
Spanish marriages, 106. 

Westbury, Lord, 210, 211. 

Willis's Rooms meeting, 190. 

Wylde, Colonel, mission of, 112- 
113. 



z. 



Zurich, treaty of, 196. 



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'Worcester's Compreliensive Dictionary. 

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Roget's Xliesaurus. 

A Treasury of English Words. Classified and arranged so as to Facilitate 
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Ancient and Modern Familiar Quotations* 

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Soule's Kng^lisli Synonymes. 

A Dictionary of Synonymes and Synonymous or Parallel Expressions. ^2.50. 



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GAZETTEER OF THE WORLD. 

A Complete Pronouncing Gazetteer, or Geographical 
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commmG notices op oyer one hundred and twenty-five thousand places 

With Recent and Authentic Information respecting the Countries, 

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NEW EDITION, WITH SUPPLEMENTAEY TABLES, 

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upon the most recent Census Returns, One Volume. Imperial Octavo. 

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*' It 5s the best work of its kind extant, and 5s a necessary supplement to any 
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" It has long stood far superior to all similarworks through 5ts uniform accuracy, 
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LlPPIICOm BIOGRAPHICAL DICTIONAEy. 

A New, Thoroughly-Revised, and Greatly-Enlarged Edition. 

A UNIVERSAL PRONOUNCING DICTIONARY OF BIOGRAPHY AND MYTHOLOGY. 

CONTAINING 

Memoirs of the Eminent Persons of all Ages and Countries, and Accounts of the 

Various Subjects of the Norse, Hindoo, and Classic Mythologies, with the 

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i5y JOSEPH thom:a.s, 3j:.i>., IL.1L..I>. 

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WORCESTER'S 

Unabridged Q^^to 

DICTIONARY 




With Denison's Patent Index for 75 cents additional. 

EIDITIOIsr OIF 1887- 

ENLARGED BY THE ADDITION OF 

A New Pronouncing Biographical Dictionary 

of nearly 12,000 personages ; 

A New Pronouncing Gazetteer of the World, 

noting and locating over 20,000 places. 

CONTAINING ALSO 

OVEZFt 12,500 NEZVT TATORDS, 

RECENTLY ADDED, TOGETHER WITH 

A Table of 5000 "Words in General Use, witli their 

Synonymes* 

ILLUSTRATED WITH WOOD-OUTS AND FULL-PAGE PLATES. 



LIBRHRY SHEEP, MHRBLED EDGES - $10.00. 



TIt-e IXfational Standat'd, of American JLiterature, 

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my shelves for occasional consultation." 

FOR sale by all BOOKSELLERS. 

J. B. lilPPINCOTT COMPANY, Pulilisliers, 

^- T^and 711 M?^ke^treet, Philadelphia. 



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